Congrats on the Rekluse for your CRF450L cable clutch bike!
You chose a more normal path, and like me before you, may you be blessed with learning experiences
The more normal path is the more comfortable in terms of the evolutionary steps... steps of retaining the foot brake with a left hand brake, and retaining the override clutch. I started there too, but then again I'm:
Evolving by logical necessity to increased simplicity, with no override clutch lever and mechanisms, and no foot brake clutter. Just throttle controlling Rekluse clutch and unloading for shifting, and hand brakes. You already know that, but perhaps more 'splanation would help, or at least entertain.
This in my opinion is attaining less from more.
- Plumbing a left-hand rear brake into the master cylinder of the foot brake creates TWO rear brakes, more for the brain to track, and a mini brain freakout if you bumble into using both brakes simultaneously
- When you opt for the auxiliary, versus primary, left hand rear brake, you will by default bypass it and it become at most an 'emergency brake' that won't stay on unless you strap the lever back toward the grip.
Rekluse provides a black dead-engine emergency brake strap with Velcro. but to date I haven't used it once on three Rekluse-equipped bikes
- When you retain an override clutch function on a Rekluse EXP-based system, you will learn quickly to ignore it because it weird and sucks
- You can fine control clutch slip MORE precisely with the throttle on a Rekluse auto clutch than you can with throttle and manual clutch (really), and with a big engine you don't need big clutch dumps to get over stuff
So your current setup may end up to your brain like this electric bike on the left hand:
- Rekluse + cable clutches come with adjustment hassles and inconsistent clutch adjustement
A critical auto clutch adjustment (any type) is the dead engine/idle clutch pack clearance (Rekluse confuses us by calling that 'free play gain'), the newer type EXP-based clutches do not set clearance with shims and such during clutch assembly, but in series with clutch actuation, hydraulic or cable.
With hydraulic clutches Rekluse provides a fine slave cylinder with a setscrew adjuster:
The o-ring-sealed screw creates an adjustable backstop for the piston such that the piston-rod-pressure plate stack-up is always in compression. At dead engine/idle, the pressure plate is lifted off the pack slightly so you can roll the bike around in gear and so at idle the clutch does not roll the bike forward. With EXP stiffer clutch springs are provided and the EXP expands with RPM to get rid of all clearance and then expand against the stiff clutch springs.
On a cable clutch, the only way to to maintain pressure plate lift is tensioning the cable all the time, substantially! On my KLR with EXP Rekuse, the lever was all the way out with cable like a guitar string. Pulling in a clutch lever against a pre-tensioned cable and stiffer clutch springs is yeech! Very weird feeling and if you pull the clutch in any time when the EXP is expanding or contracting, you feel it fighting your hand. Weird! Clutch levers adjusted all the way out is already and ergonomic no-no, promoting 'whiskey clutch', that plus very stiff and the throttle hand causing changes to lever position is just fricken weird!
Now maybe Rekluse has revised this system, but I doubt that's technically possible. Let me know what you get in your 'full CX4 kit.'
Clutch pack clearance is already finicky adjustment and a long cable expanding and contracting with temperature, plus changing tension with steering degrees (recall over tight throttle cables and rpm rise). I hated the feel of the override clutch, and tail chasing the adjustment just pissed me off. The solution was to lose it all except what matters most, a simple and stable way to adjust the clutch pack clearance on a cable clutch bike.
The solution on the KLR turned out very easily made from the tail end of the stock clutch cable:
A short section of the stock cable was brazed to the knurled steel doohickey on the right, but direct to the original steel cable-end adjuster works too, as you don't have to rotate it to adjust it.
Note in the above the brake Speigler line from the handlebar master cylinder direct to the rear caliper zip tied to the non-moving lever.
You can do something similar of the CRF450F:
I advocate for bye bye to all the foot brake clutter too, leaving on the Brembo 10mm DOT fluid clutch master cylinder and custom Speigler brake line. The below cost me $75 used on eBay and I think $70 for the Spiegler line.
...but that's little old me.
End result for me on the left hand was a one-finger-strong rear brake with the lever hydraulically limiting out without sponginess about half way to the bars, just like a hydraulic front brake. That got adopted on my next two bikes
and I'll never go back.