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Hard clutch (self.motorcycles)

submitted 6 months ago by InternetCitizen2 to c/motorcycles

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The clutch on my bike has been feeling rather tight. I did some searches for mechanic tutorials and found one that suggested loosening a nut near the handle bars. That did work for a bit but seems to tighten up after a while.

Can someone help me with some keywords to help my search for tutorials and better diagnose issues?

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[–] RubberElectrons 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

All good points here. If you take a look at your clutch cable, you'll notice it's a bunch of long thin steel strands, twisted together. This keeps the wire both flexible and strong.

However, if even a single cable stand has broken somewhere in the middle of the cable, that strand is scratching at the inside of the cable, causing resistance.

Just as bad, there's now slightly less strength to the remaining part of the cable that's still connected. Another strand pops. Then another. This progresses over a couple of days. Suddenly, mid ride on the highway, there's a gentle crunching feeling in the clutch, and the clutch can no longer disengage. You're no longer able to disengage engine from wheels.

Should this ever happen to you, by the way, you can still shift very carefully using only the pedal, but you must accelerate your engine then let go of the throttle before quickly stepping up or down a gear. That quick throttle action sorta disconnects the engine from transmission for a brief instant due to backlash in the transmission gears.

I digress. Replace your cable with OEM, lube before install and don't worry about replacing it for another 4 or 5 years, so long as you relube every year.