St3 Clutch

How bad are your plates and basket??
You could try doing a quiet clutch mod first without spending anything.
With the mod done, the tabs no longer chatter about in the basket slots, so as long as you have enough material on the friction plates, the clutch may well be fine as it is.
All you need to do is put a friction plate in first and make sure you don't have friction plate to friction plate anywhere. Plain to plain is fine.
Of course, if the noise of the Ducati dry clutch is music to your ears and you have plenty of money, don't bother.

 

It would be unusual if the friction material is badly worn. These clutches usually get replaced because of wear between tabs and basket.
It won't let you down because of that though.
The characteristic rattle is the sound of the tabs bashing the basket. As they wear, the clearance gets bigger and they wear more, so the wear accelerates.
Putting a friction plate in first stops all that.

 

No

Nope, no need for any special tools, it really is as easy as that
If you don't have an old friction plate, you can even reorder your existing plates. I know someone who did that and it works perfectly.

 

The mod relies on the fact that the basket slots are machined in such a way that there is a curved end to the slot. If you put a plain plate on first, the friction plate tabs remain in the parallel sided section of the slot but if you put a friction plate in first, it sits right down into the curve at the bottom and jams in there. It then damps the movement of the whole stack, so no more oscillation, no more chattering, no more accelerated wear

 

I would agree with what has been said already, these clutches are very robust, even though they sound like they are rattling themselves to death. How many miles has your present clutch done?

If it's not slipping when you open the throttle in a high gear at low speed then things are prob OK. But you can check the conditions of the plates if you are worried. The only special tool I use is a wire coat hanger, cut two straight bits about 100mm long and bend the last 3- 5 mm over at one end - makes it easier to fish out the last few plates at the bottom of the basket. All the plates should have roughly the same amount of meat, a lot less meat than you would expect if you are only used to single plate car clutches. if they are unevenly worn then you need new plates, rotors and springs and maybe a new bearing in the pressure plate. Check the tabs aren't cracked or too burred over and check the slots in the basket - if the slots are badly worn you need a new basket, but otherwise you can just replace the plates.

I was told by a dealer my ST3 needed a complete new clutch and basket, that was 9000 miles ago, the clutch had been replaced 20,0000 miles ago according to the service history. I fitted suzuki gs650 wet clutch plates ( you can search the forum for a thread on this). I do a bit of commuting and it didn't work because the clutch kept dragging when hot. I refitted the original plates except 2 at the top of the pack which are the gs650 plates. It's working fine and looks like it can easily do another 9000 miles.

I tried the quiet clutch mod, makes it sound like a tambourine so I changed it back to the proper rattle of the unmodded clutch

 

I too was persuaded to try the Suzuki clutch plates and had exactly the same problem.
The tabs were just too tight a fit in my clutch basket and got worse and worse as the motor got hotter.
My solution was to keep two of these plates at the bottom of the stack , so that the old plates could still clear even if the new ones jammed.
Worked a treat.
Yes, with the clutch now quiet you can hear the plates jangle when you pull the lever but I don't spend much time with the lever in and I don't dislike the sound anyway.

 

Should only be worn tabs and maybe grooves cut into the baskets.
Quiet clutch should eliminate any backlash resulting from that