Clutch Cable Broke - repair - pictures

At almost 10,000 miles my clutch cable broke tonight. Thankfully I was only a few miles from home so I limped bike home with clutchless shifts and stalling at lights.

Finding neutral with no clutch is damn near impossible.

So my question:

Do I have to buy the whole cable assembly?

Or can I buy raw cable, cut to length, and press on the end nubs?

Unless you have an old timer around that knows how to solder on cable ends (and has the parts) you will be buying a new cable. I know it's a pain because of the routing under the tank.

I can order cable assembly online for 19 bucks (plus shipping) but I was hoping to ride Sunday on Father's Day.

I can't wait to see what the local stealership charges me for it.

Anyone care to guess?

motokid wrote:

I can order cable assembly online for 19 bucks (plus shipping) but I was hoping to ride Sunday on Father's Day.

I can't wait to see what the local stealership charges me for it.

Anyone care to guess?

Online for $19... you'll pay 2.885* that at the dealership... so $54.82 + tax :)

I think they're gonna charge you $51.99 for it

But hey, that's just a guess.

What's the prize for the closest guess?

Peterbuilt wrote:

What's the prize for the closest guess?

Pride in being #1

Can't hurt to call around. There was a small motorcycle salvage shop near here that had been open since the 70's but closed a year or two ago. That guy made and repaired cables. He didn't get much business in that because most people just buy new ones, but he had the skills to do it and he did it well. He fixed quite a few for me over the years that were too long, wrong ends, etc. It was nice when you wanted to ride but not wait on parts.

Trouble is the weather here is just F'n perfect. Truly perfect.
Father's Day is this Sunday.
I need bike Tuesday as car is scheduled for some maintenance at shop.
I'm impatient to be sure.

If local stealership has part for under $50 I won't feel too ripped off.

If it's over $50 I might be a bit pissed off and go online.

I can't imagine shipping for one cable would be more than $10.

We'll see. I'll make a phone call today to stealership.

A dealership? Stock something you need? What?

Not in my experience... Good luck!

Do yourself a favor and buy two. Cable tie the two together and install. If it breaks again you have one set to go. Just connect ends and all set. It's a old long distance dual-sport trick.

pbnut wrote:

A dealership? Stock something you need? What?

Not in my experience... Good luck!

Fingers crossed.

SHIT - - $22.99 but not in stock and 3-5 business days away.





Great price - but no riding this weekend.....

Dude, just go to cycle shop and buy a brake cable. Only 2$ :)

hell0men wrote:

Dude, just go to cycle shop and buy a brake cable. Only 2$ :)

Looks like a bicycle brake cable may work in a pinch...you could size it up, and see if it gets you thru till the order comes in...

Usually the ends on a brake cable are too small. I've tried. Some smaller bikes you can make it work while waiting for the correct part. the end at the engine is an issue usually too.

Got my pair of cables delivered to my doorstep late yesterday afternoon. Happy Day!!!!


Now that I look it appears the clutch cable is tightly zip-tied together through multiple points to route it under gas tank and through various "passageways".

So just duct-taping end of new cable to end of old cable and pulling the new one through doesn't appear feasible.

Removing seat, side panel, and gas tank appears to be the path of least resistance for this process.


Oh well....gives me a chance to check on some things under the covers.


Hopefully riding tomorrow.

From here:


to here:


to here:



Took one hour including washing hands a few times for picture taking.
More pictures to come documenting process.

Gotta cut grass before it gets too hot.

Then the rest of the pictures.

Here's a teaser:

So the idea of just pulling the old cable out and/or using the old cable to pull the new cable through is toast. There's a very tightly cinched zip tie inside the frame under the gas tank that you'd never be able to pull things through. Also the clutch cable jacket is pretty ruggedized. It doesn't bend real easy and just pass through "s" curves with ease. I definitely needed two hands on cable to manipulate it through a few places.

You could probably exchange clutch cable without removing gas tank completely, but I wanted to disconnect and reconnect the gas tank so I could understand that connector better. I accomplished that mission. There's no need to drain gas tank to remove it from bike. Just be aware that there is some gasoline in the line that will dribble out after the connector is released from tank. No gas at all dribbles out from tank though.

So where did my cable break?
Right at the lever.




Part number for replacement:


Very handy reuseable cable ties. Thanks to Yamaha for those. Do not cut these. Easy to open with a small flat bladed screw driver.


Connector for gas line to fuel tank. In "open" position.


Connector in "closed" position. This is how it's secured on your tank connector. Slide the orange part to open position (see picture aboce).
Squeeze blue tabs inward and slide the whole thing off the plastic elbow on underside of fuel tank.

Elbow on underside of gas tank:

This is the very snuggly cinched cable tie that Yamaha uses to keep the clutch cable off to one side of gas tank.

Once this is cut off you can now remove the old broken cable from the bike.

On the ball end of the cable where it attaches to lever arm there is a small, very easy to bend tab that you need to bend so old ball end can be removed and new ball end can be positioned properly. Then bend the tab back and carry on.

My new cable tie after new clutch cable was snaked through openings:

Make sure you put the one rubber boot on before you connect the cable to the lever.

Button everything back up.


Might want to start bike before putting EVERYTHING back together just to make sure gas line and electrical connections are in proper homes.


Then....happy riding.

Nice how-to!

Mine broke today in the same place :-( 5000 miles at 3 years old, not good quality from mr Yam.

Good pics and tips in this post, thanks :-)

I was surprised to see some broken strands today when I was going over the bike. (It has 8900 miles on it). Imagine my additional shock when I peeled back the rubber and discovered that there were only about 8 strands remaining and the rest had frayed off. I have noticed it was harder to pull recently but put that down to the need to re-lube the cables. Anyhow, I did have a new spare cable sitting in a drawer since I like to stock up on items that might fail (don't like being held up a few days waiting for parts). Thanks to this thread from Moptokid and the excellent photos, I waded on in and got 'er done. Took about an hour and 20 minutes as I took my time and did not want to forget anything. Works like a charm now. Thanks again for the information.