How "heavy" should the clutch lever be?

xsgeoff

xsgeoff

XS650 Greenhorn
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This is my first motorcycle, so while my mechanical aptitude is quite good, I don't have a ton of experience with how things should "feel".

My clutch seemed a bit hard to pull to me, but I didn't think it was that unreasonable. But then my friend stopped by on his '09 Honda CBR600RR, and was blown away by how heavy my clutch was. I tried his bike, which felt like pulling nothing compared to my clutch.

I don't know how much of that is just his being a modern "race" bike vs. mine being a 30 year old UJM. But now I am worried that it is excessive, and my hands are not going to be able to make it through a day of riding.

I took the cover off, and tried pulling the clutch (so only resistance is the return spring and the cable sheath itself). Everything there seems easy and smooth as butter, no snags. So the "heaviness" is obviously just coming from the clutch itself.

Anything that I can check about the system, or comparisons? For instance, if I push directly on the clutch pushrod by hand (with a punch) I cannot budge the pin. Can someone confirm or deny this is how it should be?
 
Yes, that's how it should be. You won't be pushing in the clutch pushrod with a punch. Yes, these bikes do have a harder lever pull than a new bike, but you can lessen it by lubing everything up real well. Fill the worm gear assembly with grease and oil the cable with motor oil. Also, make sure the cable is routed correctly with no sharp bends or kinks. Yes, they are all easy to pull with the cover off, even a dry (un-lubed), kinked cable. Put a load on it though and it will bind right up. You should make the worm gear and cable lubing a yearly maintenance thing. I do mine every spring so I'm set for the coming season.

Here's inside my left cover after its annual "Spring Cleaning". The exposed section of the clutch pushrod gets a fresh coating of grease, as does the portion of the shift shaft that resides in the cover. The cable is oiled (from the top) until it dribbles out the bottom. Then the exposed cable length is coated with grease and the cable elbow is injected with it .....

InsideLeftCover.jpg


Here it is "before". You can still see evidence of last year's grease on the pushrod, shift shaft and exposed portion of the cable .....

InsideLeftCoverDirty.jpg
 
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There are alot of things that can cause a "heavy" feeling clutch on these old bikes. Depending on the age of the cable and the maintenance that has been done to the cable it could have some broken strands or corrosion inside the outer housing that is invisible during a routine examination but will cause a great deal of added resistance when under a load. The worm screw can also be a culprit due to wear or cracking of the plastic part that bolts to the LH side cover. The worm screw also needs to be lubed well to kep the drag to a minimum under load. If some one has replaced the clutch springs (on the pressure plate) with aftermarket springs like the Barnett springs that can add considerable pressure to the pressure plate and therefore the push rod and worm screw. Most of these issues you probably wouldn't notice with just the cltuch cable hooked to the worm screw and not under a load.

As far as not being able to push the clutch push rod by hand, That is absolutely normal. It is very difficult (impossible for me) to push this in to disengage the clutch by hand.

In the tech section there is section dedicated to the clutch. Also TwoManyXS1Bs has been doing alot of experimentation on the different parts of these clutches. You may want to take a look and some of his threads for info as to what he has done and found that makes these clutches feel better.

Man you are fast 5Twins!!
 
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I was looking into this before and found that there are hydraulic clutches you can retrofit onto the XS's pretty easily. Search the forums and you will find the needed parts and directions.
 
xsgeoff said:
This is my first motorcycle, so while my mechanical aptitude is quite good, I don't have a ton of experience with how things should "feel".

My clutch seemed a bit hard to pull to me, but I didn't think it was that unreasonable.
I don't know how much of that is just his being a modern "race" bike vs. mine being a 30 year old UJM. But now I am worried that it is excessive, and my hands are not going to be able to make it through a day of riding.

I took the cover off, and tried pulling the clutch (so only resistance is the return spring and the cable sheath itself). Everything there seems easy and smooth as butter, no snags. So the "heaviness" is obviously just coming from the clutch itself.

Anything that I can check about the system, or comparisons? For instance, if I push directly on the clutch pushrod by hand (with a punch) I cannot budge the pin. Can someone confirm or deny this is how it should be?
Click to expand...

Hi Geoff,
considering that the clutch lever's mechanical advantage must be some hundreds to one and that it takes a considerable squeeze on that lever to move the pin; no, it's not possible for even the strongest person to do it directly.
But is your UJM's mechanically actuated clutch harder to pull than a modern bike's hydraulic one?
Sure it is.
What you can do to ease the pull, besides cleaning and relubricating the cable, is look at where the cable runs. The stock route takes several close radius bends to follow the frame and stay hidden from sight.
Every close bend tends to bind up and add friction under load so look for ways to ease it's route.
What I did on my XS11 was to run the cable in a single free air swoop from the lever to the clutch cover. Looks ugly as hell but cuts the pull by 50%.
The XS650 clutch cable enters the drive side cover so the direct route isn't feasible (and anyway, compared to an XS11 the XS650 don't have a heavy pull) but some route easement should be possible.
Another possibility is that your existing cable is plain ol' wore out. Try a good quality new one. And get a new throttle cable too, you should have spare cables anyway.
 
I can pull my clutch with 1 finger. not gona compare to a new bike or even hydraulic clutch though
 

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