Couple days ago when pushing the clutch pedal I would get this squeak-creak noise like plastic rubbing on plastic. This evening I looked into it closer and pulled the cable to see if anything was moving into impending failure mode. Cable looked OK and I spent some time with a can of fluid film and lubed up the cable as best I could. Still plenty of grease all around the adjuster and pedal pivot, felt around and the adjuster teeth on both pieces felt fine. Put everything back together (including the over the top cable guide clip!) and after some fidgeting and figured out the cable end was not fully seated on the transmission.

Noise appears to be gone and wtf happend to my clutch pedal ? In an unscientific before and after I could swear the pedal depress effort has gone down by 1/3-1/2 ? Assuming nothing decides to snap and break tomorrow on the way in I may make this a regular maintenance thing, like every other oil change pull the cable and spray some lubricant down it.