80' GS450L Clutch issues

[Guest]

So I received this bike as a gift from a friend. Just got it running decently, finally idles without the choke. When I received it, It had a broken clutch cable. What might cause a clutch cable to break besides age and wear on the cable? I took the cable housing off and threaded a piece of cable through it and re-installed it, as hard as I could pull, I still couldn't disengage the clutch. Could the springs be too tight on the clutch ass.? There is a little bit of slack before it gets to the rod, but as soon as it does there's no movement after. Shifts fine when not running. This is my first bike and I've been chewing my local parts guy's ear off, so any help I can get on here will be extremely appreciated.

[holdorf333]

really, you should pull the clutch cover off and have a look around. with older british cars that have sat for a while, sometimes the clutch plate will "fuse" together with the flywheel. You can try rocking the bike in gear and the clutch pulled and engine off. not a bad idea to actually get a look at what's going on. just my $0.02

[pete]

If it's been sitting for quite a while, the clutch can be stuck together, get the motor warm and rocking the bike in gear can loosen it up.

As for the broken cable, my brand new one broke after about 20,000km's and it was due to two reasons... incorrect routing and not lubing it. I installed the new one and routed it according to the factory manual and lubed it and so far so good.