I was driving my 1996 soft tail classic when pulling in the clutch it suddenly became about 1/2 inch looser, possibly more. To get home I tightened the slack with the cable adjustment. it seemed to work fine. Does anyone know what happened?

 

There is a good chance the cable strands are separating inside the housing.

Make sure the adjuster nut on the clutch has not come loose. Pop the derby cover and have a look.

 

OK thanks Dan89FLSTC

Ill pull off the plate and check it out. I figured it wouldnt be the actual clutch cable with such massive slack instantly like that. I hope its something easy and cheap...ish.

 

Have you had a chance to check out what the problem was? If so, what did you find.? Thanks

 

Sounds to me like your throwout bearing has failed.

 

I'm reviving this thread because I am having the same problem. It started after I bottomed out going over a speed bump. First thought was the cable was stretched. I couldn't totally disengage the clutch until I spread out the cable adjuster tightening the cable, it was probably was a 1/2"-3/4" adjustment.
With that adjustment the hand lever wouldn't go all the way back to the handle grip like it did before. Feels like there is only half the travel in the cable . It engages and disengages without any apparent slippage.

I opened the clutch release cover, everything including the both ramps the throw bearing and both ends of the push rod look fine and the cable is not damaged.

So when I put it back together backing off the adjuster screw before I did, then readjusted the clutch and it was still the same. So I unhooked the cable at the hand lever then with a screw driver through the dipstick hole I can push the inner ramp back a 1/2".
Does anyone know what happened ?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

All is well , apparently my ***** were not seated properly.

 

Damn, you just have to hate it when your ***** are not seated! Ok, I just had to say it��

 

A good way to check this is when you turn the adjuster screw in to adjust the clutch, turn it all the way in until it fully bottoms out that way you know the ramps are seated in there starting position. Then you can back out the adjuster and adjust the clutch following the normal procedure.

 

What happened, we"re guessing, is my clutch hand controller broke inside at the same time or right after I hit that bump. That somehow pulled the cable out of the control that 1/2" I had to adjust the cable. It took about a half a day for the hand lever to totally come apart, which at the time I thought that was a consequence of the adjustment to the cable adjuster and the extra tension on the hand lever because it wasn't going all the way back , so I thought I musta just squeezed it too hard.
After installing the new control I was barely using a little more than finger tight on the clutch adjuster screw to seat the ramps, obviously not emough force.