Stupid Clutch Cable

Getting correct length cables is a good idea, but my experience is if you do a lot of city stop/go riding, the cable is good for about 12,000 miles, maybe a little more. On my 160,000 mile KZ650 I've replaced the clutch cable at least 10 times. Always snaps at the lever even with religious grease and oil applied. Good thing is normally plenty of warning, a couple strands of cable break off the ball, then a couple more, then finally you are down to a couple strands then it snaps.
The trouble now is most if not all the stock cables are discontinued so Motion Pro to the rescue. Problem is, they replace 25 different Kawasaki cables with +/- 4" length with a single replacement which will never be close to being the correct length, but whithin 4" which is close enough to them.

Motion Pro makes custom lengths, but it probably doubles or triples the cost. ??? In which case he might find a suitable nos oem cable on eebbaayy in the same price range.

I had a problem with my clutch cable breaking and it turned out that there was a groove in the adjustment barrel and a burr was slowly fraying the cable. I replaced the adjuster and I haven't had a problem since.

Makes sense to me. My cables tend to last forever on my Kawasaki, but on my old BSA they were shot very quickly. Any little burr or kink will wear them out. Ed

Similarly, I've seen some old posts in which the clutch cable end has a burr, causing it to bind & fray. The fix was to file down the burr.

OK so I found a supplier that listed the lengths of the cable housing and cable length on thier sell site. My standard KZ1100A Motion Pro cable is a 03-0006 with a housing length of 48 5/8" and a cable length of 52 3/8". It was WAY longer than I needed, causing a big "U" shaped loop at the lower end of the frame before it went into the spot it goes in. The one for the '82 GPZ1100 is a 03-0030 with a housing length of 45 3/4" with a cable length of 49 1/2". About 3" shorter overall. It fits MUCH better,without the loop at the bottom. Nice and tight against the frame. Up top,I could use it to be another inch or so shorter due to my narrow Daytona bars.It's still a little tight around the headlight bucket. I sprayed in the lube at the top,in the middle and down below,and greased it with synthetic grease. It should last longer than a few months,which is what I was getting out of the longer ones.

My clutch cable has an IQ of 154, no problems here.