How Not to Lube the Clutch Cable on Your SV650

The saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” didn’t come from nowhere. Unfortunately, I can’t resist a good tinkerin’, and that’s how I found myself in my garage on a beautiful Sunday morning messing with my SV instead of out riding. All this because I wanted to be a good little motorcyclist and lube my clutch cable since smooth shifting has been more difficult than usual lately.

My first mistake was assuming that the clutch cable needed to be lubed in the first place. If the owner’s manual and the service manual say nothing about lubing a clutch cable, does that really mean it doesn’t have to be lubed?

12/2009 update… I found the answer: 2nd gen SV650s have a coated clutch cable. It’s supposedly maintenance free. The consensus is that the coating is teflon, but I haven’t been able to find a definitive source for that information.

To lube or not to lube? There’s lots of debate on that subject, but one thing is certain: do not use Maxima Chain Wax and Cable Lube to lube the clutch cable on your SV650 or you’ll end up looking like this:

To top things off, I seriously threw my clutch release mechanism out of whack while lubing the cable. The owner’s manual makes adjusting this mechanism sound easy. It’s not, and the verbiage in the manual is misleading and poorly written. Even worse: the 2nd gen service manual is just as bad.

I managed to put things back together, but it was immediately obvious that something was off with the clutch: the lever was much stiffer than before and the clutch felt like it was dragging whenever I eased out the lever. After a bunch of research and some fiddling, I got the bike into rideable shape, but I needed help. This is where I give a huge shout out to Mike at Premier Motogear in Albany for taking the time to show me how to set the clutch release correctly. Once that was done, the clutch no longer felt “draggy” and the engagement point felt good. But, there was still the matter of the lever action being incredibly stiff.

Sometimes it takes a village to help a newbie. I stopped by the coffee shop on Sunday to see the Corvallis PNWRiders crew off on their ride that morning. And why wasn’t I riding with them? ’cause my clutch was broke! After explaining my tale of woe to Jim, the first thing he asked is what lube I used. And then he shook his head. Ever get that sinking feeling?

So that’s how I ended up in my garage, using a teeny tiny syringe to squirt kerosene down my clutch cable to flush out the bad lube. Was kerosene the appropriate choice? Who knows! I was getting desperate. Once the bad lube was washed out, I used the syringe to apply a very small amount of oil to the cable since the kerosene left it bone dry. And… I’ll be dammed if the clutch doesn’t work better than before! I dunno if it was the lube or the clutch release adjustment or just cleaning out all the gunk that collected around the release mechanism or my own mental justification for three days of frustration but it honestly feels like a new bike. Huzzah!

So there you have it. And just in time, too, because I’m going to Gold Beach on Thursday and you’re all coming with me.

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