Throttle Cable woes

[PotlessPaul]

Hi all, whilst out enjoying the sunshine yesterday the throttle cable on my S3 snapped and so I need to find a new one from somewhere, I have read previous posts on the subject and my only option seems to be to have a new inner cable fitted to the old outer or has anyone come up with a different solution?

Any ideas would be welcome as driving around in a diesel Clio in this weather is not ideal!!

[tozerman]

All I did was replace the inner, I went to halfords and for less than a fiver bought a stainless steel brake cable (get them to cut off the small nipple and leave the big one on) and thread that through the old outer bit, you will nead to be a bit heath robinson with the linkage but it works ok, if I can find some pics I'll post them up.

Cheers.....Tony..

[themee]

My next job too! not yet snapped but noticed a couple of the wires frayed off the cable, scared too use it now.Have heard it can be a bit tricky to do.Mines a V8S anyone recommend best one to use on that or just a standard one again?

[phillpot]

V8 cable still available clicky (if not cheap) unlike the V6 which are very scarse scarce


Edited for spelling

Edited by phillpot on Wednesday 28th March 18:16

[themee]

Ordering one tommorow ^^^^ Cheers!

[PotlessPaul]

Tozerman, thanks for the reply, I have just been in the garage to take the old cable off (and spend 20 minutes trying to find where the little metal clip flew off to!!)I'll give your solution a try. which end of the cable retains the nipple, pedal or throttle linkage?

cheers, Paul.

[GreenV8S]

themee said:

My next job too! not yet snapped but noticed a couple of the wires frayed off the cable, scared too use it now.Have heard it can be a bit tricky to do.Mines a V8S anyone recommend best one to use on that or just a standard one again?

On the V8, the throttle cable inner tends to fail at the pedal end due to the sharp kink at the end of the ferrule there when the throttle is closed.

After having several failures I found a few simple changes improved things tremendously - the current one has been over for over 100K miles and still looks fine.

The cable outer is quite a bit longer than it needs to be. If you carefully trim 6" off the outer with a fine hacksaw, this gives you enough free length on the broken inner to let you re-use it with a screw on cable nipple. (In emergency there is a suitable one attaching the cable to the heater control valve close by the throttle body.)

If you shorten the outer or replace the inner, take the opportunity to take the ferrule off the cable inner and open out the end so that it forms a bell mouth. This allows the cable inner to follow a smooth curve instead of kinking.

Fit a throttle stop and adjust it to the right height so that you can just get full throttle. The angle of the floor under the pedal is just right for a throttle stop which is at right angles to the floor, and you can make a throttle stop for a few quid using a couple of 'top hat' towel rail brackets and a short length of tube.

[tozerman]

PotlessPaul said:

Tozerman, thanks for the reply, I have just been in the garage to take the old cable off (and spend 20 minutes trying to find where the little metal clip flew off to!!)I'll give your solution a try. which end of the cable retains the nipple, pedal or throttle linkage?
cheers, Paul.

The bigger nipple is at the throttle pedal end, you just thread it through til it comes out the other side, I don't have my car any more so I can't take any pictures of the linkage end, but basically I removed the ball/socket arangement and replaced it with a bolt, made a bracket to link the cable to the bolt and hey presto sorted, carried a spare in the boot as well just in case, all for less than a fiver.

Cheers.....Tony..

[PotlessPaul]

Thanks for the replies, I'll get it sorted over the weekend and carry a spare piece of cable in future! the throttle stop sounds like a good idea as well as there was a lot of travel on the pedal before and I assume that some of that travel was stretching the cable.

Thanks again, Paul.

[v8s4me]

When my V8S throttle snapped I got a length of bowden cable from the local motor bike shop, soldered on a big nipple and fed it through the original outer and connected to the throttle with a home made linkage. Hopefully pics are self explanatory.