Just bought my first ultra classic in January. Upgraded from my sportster. There is no play in the clutch lever, and the I’ll have one huge forearm by the end of summer. Tried to adjust the lever, followed the cable down and can’t find the boot with the adjustment nut. It’s a braided cable that turns into a regular black cable with a chrome metal boot. I’ve been told that the adjustment is under that chrome boot. But it doesn’t move. It’s not slotted to fit a wrench. Both ends are crimped to the cables. I even tried taking the fairing off to see if it was inside. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance

 

Well, from what I'm looking at, I would gather that the chrome sleeve should slide one way or the other to expose the adjuster.
If this is the case it's probably rusted. Could try some heat or soak with penetrating oil etc.
After market part for sure.
All else fails get a new stock cable install and move on.
All I have.

 

Looks like it should slide toward the clutch handle (up).

 

May want to list the year of the bike. Could be helpful getting meaningful replies. I think I see 2009?

 

F159hd does it make a difference what year bike, it’s a clutch cable. You have manual cables and hydraulic cable. This one doesn’t seem to have an adjustment mid way down. There’s one of you everywhere. Thanks to everyone else’s input that didn’t need the year of the bike to give me their idea on a clutch cable without a year.

 

What's the back side look like?

 

Metal sleeve on the cable adjuster is a twist lock. Look at the bottom side, and can see the sleeve indents that mate up to the lower cable piece to hold it in place.

So sleeve will need to be turned counter clockwise as you are pulling it up on the cable.

Once you have that up, adjust the cable so the lever is way loose.

From here, pull the primary access cover to get to the clutch adjuster acme bolt, loosen off the jam nut, then with a longer tail allen wrench, back the clutch basket plate bolt off, then as you are spinning the allen head acme bolt back in to kiss the end of it to the throw rod, allow the weight of the allen wrench tail itself to fall to find where the tip of the bolt just starts to contact the throw rod. From this point, back off 1/4~1/2 turn on the allen head acme bolt via allen wrench, then hold the bolt with allen wrench as you tighten back up the jam nut so the acme bolt does not spin at the same time.

At this point, basket plate bolt is set correctly, so you can button back up the primary access cover plate, then move to the cable adjuster to fine tune the lever position to your liking. I say to your liking, since depending on the length of your fingers, may want to dial in a little more free slop in the lever, so the clutch engagement point at the lever is not be beyond your finger tip reach.

As for hard to get into neutral with slight extra lever free play, as long as bike was level when you where adjusting the basket bolt, and the fluid level was correctly, should not be a problem. If the primary was over filled, then this causes the extra drag on the plates with the fluid too high instead.

Hence want the fluid to bottom of basket edge, and when the primary chain is moving, will spray the oil up to flush the plates.


If you still have problems with the clutch not disengaging correctly with the lever in, time to pull the clutch apart, and double check to make sure that the clutch spring plate is not coming apart, and about to take out the clutch basket as well.

Note here, this spring plate has totally come apart, but if you finding that its just a brass rivet or two that has popped loose (but still in the channels), replace the plate, since it about to do the complete fall apart in the basket to take the basket out next.

As for just replacing the spring plate, or changing out to extra disc clutch that does not use the spring plate, all up to you. My take, since already into the clutch, now is a good time to change out to an extra plate clutch since it is a problem child that when it goes, does take out the clutch basket as well. But if funds are low ,and rest of the discs are fine, will be a lot cheaper just replacing the spring plate instead.

 

I haven't own a lot of Harley's, but the cable setup on yours doesn't match any of the bike's I have owned. So a little more info about your bike may help.

 

After market clutch cable, and isntead of having the rubber boot at the adjuster, has as twist lock chrome sleeve instead.

If you take a close look at the lower sleeve dentent angles, you can tell that is a twist lock, and if you look at the upper mid section, can see where someone used a set of pliers with leather on the jaws to get it up or seated before hand, since they slightly dented it the last go around.

So between this, and the thin layer of just at the upper sleeve to the upper fitting on the adjuster section, the twist lock outer sleeve barrel is just being stubborn on twist unlocking now so it can be pulled upwards to get the adjuster bolts below it.

 

Lighten up Francis....

It's not a standard Harley cable, so he was asking for clarification to try to help you out.....

Why the attitude....???

Good luck with your adjustment..