Clutch Repair That'll Put You Back In The Saddle

We were off to the races. We shuffled off to Buffalo. Well not quite Buffalo, but near there: Olean, NY, for the Rally In The Valley, and then to Dansville, for the Poags Hole Hill climbs. It was late Saturday afternoon; the Rally was winding down. My three friends and I fired up and nodded to each other that we were ready to pull away from the curb. I pulled in the clutch, dropped it into first, and lurched awkwardly, narrowly missing a small group of pedestrians, before I stalled her out, and rolled sheepishly back to the curb. My clutch cable stuck straight up in the air, looking amazingly like some kind of strange whip antenna. Hmmm. An aftermarket cable, she came apart at the ferrule.

It was late on a Saturday and the closest Harley dealer was an hour away. We plied the dwindling crowds at the Rally looking for a clutch cable. We got a few leads and the best one boiled down to this: there was a guy in a bar outside of town who "might" have one that "might" fit...but we'd better get there quick cause he's bent on getting drunk. No...I don't think so. We went to Sears and bought a Vise Grip, cut the cable, cut the sheathing, and tried several attempts at jury rigging, only to eventually tie the cable to the bars so it wouldn't flop around, and make a run for it. I forgot to mention that what had been a perfect weather day, had now turned ominous, with advancing dark clouds and lightening flashes advancing from the north, the same direction we had to go.

We were in a small city, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy. There were at least half dozen traffic lights and twenty miles before I could get to a friend's garage. Using the power of my legs, I rolled the bike as fast as I could, and slammed it up into second gear. She chugged to a stop. But on the second try, she fired, and chugged away. A red light loomed ahead and I saw my friends following in the mirror. I timed the light and blew through green, as well as the next and next. I only had to blow through one red before I was out of town and free except for the occasional hard drops of cold rain and nearby flashes of lightening.

I managed to slam it up into third, then forth and cruised at a slow but comfortable fifty. And then the sky opened up, like the proverbial cow pissing on a flat rock. So I dropped the RPM’s, and slammed her back down to third and turned on the emergency flashers. I made it to my friend's garage and we managed to fabricate a pivot from the shank of a 7/16-inch bolt that would replace the nylon pivot at the clutch grip, and hold the cable. We cut the ragged end off the cable with a die grinder and also cut about four inches out of the sheathing. We drilled the bolt for the cable to pass through and drilled another intersecting hole at ninety degrees. We tapped the second hole and put in a setscrew. Just to be safe, we added a cable clamp on the outside, but that proved unnecessary. The setscrew held the cable very well. We also added some tubing (held with hose clamps) over the cable sheathing where we spliced out the four-inch piece...just to stiffen it up. The next day we were off to the races (hill climbs), and the day after that we made the 300 mile trip home. And that little piece of 7/16 inch bolt worked so well, it now has a permanent place in my little twin cam tool bag.