Why is the Clutch Slipping on My Honda Goldwing?

If the clutch on your Honda Goldwing GL1800 motorcycle is slipping when it heats up, could it be you’re simply using the wrong kind of engine oil?

Partzilla’s Honda motorcycle expert John Talley livestreams Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern. In this session, John was asked what could be causing the clutch on a 2006 Honda Goldwing GL1800 clutch to be slipping when it heats up.

Honda Goldwing GL1800 clutch

Honda Goldwing GL1800 Clutch Slipping Q&A

On my 2006 Honda Goldwing GL1800, the clutch is slipping when it heats up. I already replaced the clutch discs, and changed the motor and brake oil but it doesn’t improve. Can you help?

John Talley: What oil are you running in it? Because I know with the Goldwings in particular, they’re really specific about what kind of oil they want. If you’re going to go synthetic, it can’t be the one with moly. You have to use the oil without it. When it comes to the HP oil or the GN4 oil, my weapon of choice is in that gold bottle. And I would hazard to guess or rather suggest that you go with a 10W-40 instead of a 10W-30, because if it’s heating up, you want a thicker viscosity for the higher temperatures. Also, when you replaced the clutch, did you soak the discs prior to? And one last thing, especially on the 1800, there’s an amount of break-in time where you really don’t need to go past half throttle on it as you’re breaking in those discs. Once they get broken in, you can roll up on them at that point. But there’s an amount of time that you need to be easy on the clutch to let it get seated in before you start hammering it. And last but not least, I noticed when we did the clutch on ours, the springs didn’t measure out and they needed to be replaced. … But before you go tearing back into the clutch again, swap out the oil, go with that 10W-40 HP in the gold bottle and see what it does.