At the beginning of the season this year, my clutch threw in the towel. I think it was the perfect storm of age, failed slave piston seal and finally the bearing in the piston. I wound up replacing the friction plates in the clutch along with a new piston, spring, seal & bearing. Got through the summer just fine, plenty of miles. Then in early October, I started losing pressure behind the lever. Long story short, the bearing ate itself. Maybe it was a crap bearing, but in retrospect, I remembered that just prior to things going downhill I had stalled the bike, still pretty cold, at a light & in gear, and just thumbed the starter quick with it still in first. I've no way of knowing, but it's nagged at me, wondering if that sudden jarring could been the start of the end for the bearing. Who knows.
Anyway - I have a feeling I'll be picking up another slave piston & bearing. What I replaced earlier this year finally threw the towel in mid-October. Took a long ride up into the Adirondacks, and had to stop two different times to bleed some fluid back into the clutch just to get home. Lots of clutchless upshifts & rev matching on the way down.
To top it off, I had a hell of a time getting the system bled up as well. The master cylinder is relatively new, so I don't think that was an issue. Makes me wonder if something else isn't amiss. I wound up using the friction plates from a '97 SS clutch kit, since you can no longer order the clutch part numbers out of the Paso parts list through Ducati (so helpful).
Has anyone made/used a reverse-bleeder, I guess it'd be more of a fluid pump - push fluid in through the clutch cover and fill the line up to the master? Should all but eliminate air as you go, right?