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?
First what year make and model is this bike?
Okay it sort of sounds like you’re new to working on your bike. That’s totally okay we all have to start somewhere, but it is important to know what you’re doing before you do it. If you don’t you can cause mechanical failure and or crash.
So that nut near your clutch lever is for adjusting clutch free play. As you put miles on a bike the cable for the clutch stretches. So periodically you have to adjust the cable so it is at the right tightness again. If you do this incorrectly you can cause engagement and or disengagement problems. Also you have the potential to burn your clutch up.
The first thing you need to do is look up a good tutorial on setting clutch replay. If you go to YouTube and search “RevZilla shop manual clutch free play” there’s a quick little video by Arie Henning that’s a pretty good explanation. You will need your specific bikes clutch free play though.
Second this seems much more like you either need to lube your clutch cable or there’s something wrong in your clutch basket. Personally I would lube up your clutch cable. And maybe replace it if it pushes out a lot of rust.
If you are as new to motorcycle maintenance as I think you are. I would not make opening up your clutch basket your first activity. It’s not too hard but it might be helpful to have a friend who knows a bit more about it to help you and so you can. Learn.
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.
Yeah I’m rather new too mechanical work. I change the oil and replaced the rear master cylinder a few years back. I have a Harley Street 750. I think you might be right about lubing the clutch.
Here is a basic maintenance schedule for the Street 750. Harley folks tend to treat cable maintenance as an annual task.
Check out someone like cycle gear for cable lube kits if you don’t have a dedicated cycle shop in your local area.
If you plan on maintaining the bike yourself, see if you can get a service manual for your bike. Harley usually has them for $100 or less. They are not cheap, but it can be a lifesaver.
Thank you for your help!