Manky Monkey Motors

Hi All,
        The clutch on my kz1100 has always been stiff, oiling the cable helped, replacing the cable helped but was always stiff. Its now so bad its pulling the cable from the soldered nipples!!!
I have now slackened the clutch cover bolts as a temerary measure but am lookin for a permenant fix. Any help or advice greatfully accepted.

No direct experience with KZ1100, but sounds like it's internal, not lever/cable. Could someone have installed heavy-duty racing clutch springs in the clutch pack, causing much higher release effort? Might be worth looking into the clutch pack itself to see what's going on down there. Possibly cleaning plates & discs and installing new stock springs would have you in good order.

My Gpz 1100 suffered the same problem turned out to be a bent push rod, is it chain drive? muck from chain lube had built up into a hard mess (managed to straighten mine and clean all crap off).

This one`s a shafty, hadn`t considered a bent rod, guess the only way to eleminate that is to replace it.

I`m thinking along the same lines as you about the springs.
Plates n discs all ok and everything moves as it should.
looks like this is gonna be trial & error replacements.

 i would also check the ball ramp mechanism they can some times wear the ball bearings or in worse cases the casing itself,
more likely the push rod is part siezed in the case as no lube will get at it like on a chain drive bike bike, my 1100 is fitted with uprated springs and the lever is noticably stiffer but not to the degree that it could pull the cable ends off, good luck with the repair, let us know how you get on mate.

To check the push rod, roll it on a flat surface it will be easy to see if its bent.

Quick update.
New cable arrived and was fitted. Nice easy pull now, re tightened the clutch spring bolts but so far so good.

finally got round to putting the clutch housing cover back on yesterday, 100% better than it was. To be honest, i think the trouble was with the cable all along.

:) result then :)

clutch cables are,nt suppose to be lubed,because the inner steel cable runs smoothly inside the plastic sheath.if you lube it with wd40 this makes it worse cuz once the liquid starts to evaporate after a few days it makes the cable sticky.never use wd40 on a chain as well,because after a few hours it evaporates and effectively your running with a completely dry chain.

had a chance to road test her properly yesterday, on the way for the MoT. Cable is fine but now have clutch slippage, plates looked ok but should have replaced them after all, bugger, gotta do it all again!

Took the lazy option n had another tinker with the adjustment mechinism. Seems a very fine adjustment is needed to get it right. Turn the screw in to far and the cable is stiff to operate n causes clutch slipage, out to far and the cable is fine but unable to selct the gears. Clymer manual advises to turn the screw until it becomes hard to turn then back it off a quater of a turn. seems to be a case of `one mans hard is another mans ?????`  ;D

Owning a Z900 or 2 over the last 20 years, which is very similar.

On the Z900 halfway along the clutch cable is an adjuster, usually it's clipped to the front left down tube, try to find a rubber boot to cover it, over time it does allow ingress of water, you'll find without any lube on the cable it'll rust real quick, on the lower length and start to stiffen up.

Like hornt says don't use wd40, i've always found that a light cooking oil is best, lube it let the oil run thru for 24 hours then refit.
This has always worked for me, the boot is the most important piece tho, i use one of the types for an inline fuse holder.