no more clutch ... help!

[shwaz]

my clutch cable snapped at the lever last night (while i was out riding in manhattan, no less). engine stalled immediately, i managed to find neutral and get to the curb.

spent close to 45 minutes digging around, lifted the tank a bit and snaked the cable and housing back and out. removed most of the housing and had some naked cable which i figured i could wrap around my glove to pull manually, replacing the lever.

i did all my testing with the bike on the center stand and the back wheel off the ground. nowhere's the rub: pulling the cable had no effect whatsoever. once in 1st gear, the wheel kept spinning after pulling the cable, and hitting the rear brake caused the engine to stall.

i managed to limp the bike home with no clutch at all. i'm concerned now that something's wrong with the clutch itself, and that just replacing the cable will not really accomplish anything.

anyone had this or know what might be going on?

[Nessism]

Replace the cable and go from there.

[DanTheMan]

Get a new cable, adjust it, you're good.

[shwaz]

Why is replacing the cable any different than pulling on thE end of the snapped cable? I mean, of course I'm going to replace it; I just don't get why this didn't work to get me home

[salty_monk]

I expect that you weren't able to pull it hard enough to separate the plates...

[shwaz]

I expect that you weren't able to pull it hard enough to separate the plates...

i'm the first to admit i don't know much, but it doesn't sound right. it was really easy to pull and the little arm that the cable terminates at was moving freely back and forth. There's never much range of motion there - I mean the cable lever only moves so far, so that arm doesn't swing more than 30 degrees, i'm guessing. it was easily doing that without resistance. I feel like it's no longer connected to whatever guts it's supposed to mesh in with on the inside.

I could be going overboard with this, but I'm worried about it. Guess I was wondering if this sounded familiar to anyone.
Anyway, I'll post back up when I've had a chance to look at it more. Was relieved just to get home safely last night.

[DanTheMan]

You need to have a LOT of leverage to overpower the springs. That's the reason for the cable housing and the clutch handle. The free movement is what it can do before it starts the mechanical work of seperating the plates. Don't make it more work than it really is. Put a new cable on, adjust it to where there's no play in the clutch handle (and no more), then try it.

[shwaz]

cool - thanks for the insight.

[Nessism]

Just wondering but how are you doing on general maintenance like cable lubrication, valve adjustment, brake fluid flushing, oil changes and the like? Broken cables can often be avoided by lubrication, or at least the fray cable can be detected before it breaks if one is lubricating it on regular intervals.

[shwaz]

ok - so thankfully everyone here was right and i'll know for next time - there's no way i could have pulled that cable by hand.

new clutch cable is on and everything's working fine. except for the fact that i can't start the bike without kicking it

Just wondering but how are you doing on general maintenance like cable lubrication, valve adjustment, brake fluid flushing, oil changes and the like? Broken cables can often be avoided by lubrication, or at least the fray cable can be detected before it breaks if one is lubricating it on regular intervals.

good reminder re: lubing the cables. I actually neglected to do this to the new choke cable. i have some graphite spray, but i don't have one of those lubricating collars with the screws. advice? is it important on a brand new cable like that?

other stuff:
-i've replaced my front brake lines with braided steel, so those have been bled
-changed oil in December
-adjusted valves in December
-ordered and waiting on a motion pro carb synch tool
-new progressive front springs
-replaced low rise bars with stock - way more comfy now

so defintiely getting my hands dirty and learning a lot with this first bike of mine.

thanks again