Kawasaki Motorcycle Jerky Throttle Fix

What could cause a jerky throttle on a motorcyle? Perhaps the cables need adjustment. Our resident motorcycle expert John Talley was asked what could cause a jerky throttle on a Kawasaki motorcycle.

John does live Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern, and in this edition, he answers a question from one of our viewers about how to fix a 2018 Kawasaki Ninja 650 with a jerky throttle.

Kawasaki Motorcycle Throttle Repair

Any suggestions on how to fix a jerky throttle on a 2018 Kawasaki Ninja 650? 

John Talley: Ok, so that probably has the push-pull situation on your throttle, and what you’re probably experiencing on it now that you have a little bit of mileage on it is just slack in the throttle, and that’s making it feel jerky. So there should be an adjustment in line on the cable itself, and I think it’s on the pull side, and you’re just going to need to break those two nuts loose and just tighten it up to where there isn’t that much play. Now, don’t overtighten it, because that’s going to stress out your cables and/or pull the throttle plates, and then you’ll have unintended cruise control. But it sounds like you just need to adjust your cables. And I can’t remember which unit we’ve done that on, maybe it was on that KLR 650. Maybe you can apply that same technique to adjusting your cable.  

As John mentioned, we did a video on how to adjust the cable on a Kawasaki KLR650 motorcycle. Whether it's a throttle cable or a clutch cable, the techniques applied in the video below include how to disconnect a cable, plus how to route a new cable through the machine, then connect it and adjust it.

Watch the video above to see how to replace and adjust the clutch cable on a Kawasaki motorcycle.

Want to see more live repair questions answered? See more motorcycle and ATV repair questions answered here.