Second throttle cable

[mcrysdale]

Great points. I'll check out both those things when I get time to work on it.

 

[Jean-Marc]

I have also built an hydraulic system rather than cable, worked great on a race car, Frank

Could you detail what components you used ?

 

[mcrysdale]

I did check and the bolt was loose enough to not put strain on the cable (swiveled easily). Did not check on the Throttle stop yet. That seems like the most likely candidate.

 

[mcrysdale]

1) I checked that the bolted end was not to tight and swiveled.
2) I checked that the pedal had stopper/limiter.
Funny thing is I would expect the 'pedal limit' to have an adjustment screw/bolt...it had nothing. just a stopper. There was a hole for bolt, but nothing in it....did it fall out??? I was not s
ure if the hole was even threaded.

Seems like once I have a working throttle cable again, i should check the travel and make sure the cable is not getting stretched like suggested above. Does anyone know if the SPF petals have a throttle limit adjustment?

 

[Mark H.]

SPF 2453 has a limit stop at the pedal. Threaded hole with bolt and jam nut.

 

[Walter]

I came to this forum hoping to find some real answers. I've been stranded on the side of the road three times due to throttle cable issues — it's beyond frustrating. Between struggling up hills using just the pedals or burning my arms in the engine bay trying to fix things on the fly, I completely sympathize with Mark's experience.

Here’s what I’ve dealt with:
1. First Breakdown: The throttle cable snapped at the back end while merging onto the highway — not a fun place to lose power. I had to flatbed the car home, then splice something together just to limp it to my mechanic. At that point, I told him there were too many bends in the cable routing and that it needed a full rework.
2. Second Incident: The return spring broke. I had to rig up a piece of wire just to manually pull the throttle so I could make it home.
3. Third Breakdown (Yesterday): While driving home, the cable snapped again — this time behind the pedal where it was mounted. Thankfully, I had just gotten new tires and had some safety wire on hand. I wired the throttle to hold at 2,500 RPM and crawled home. I had to downshift on hills to avoid stalling, and let’s just say the drivers behind me weren’t thrilled.

I suspect both breaks happened when I stomped the pedal — which, let’s be honest, you should be able to do without worrying about catastrophic failure.

I'm open to any and all suggestions for how to improve the throttle cable setup:

• Thicker cable?
• Better fittings or reinforced ends?
• Drive-by-wire conversion?
• I'm interested in Teflon-lined cables?

Honestly, it's disappointing that we even this an issue and it's a topic people are even discussing and having back up plans for, lol. I've only had this problem once before in my old '72 Porsche — and I drove the hell out of that car for over 150,000 miles. But three failures in under 2,000 miles, that’s very bad. At this rate, I’m replacing throttle cables more often than I change my oil. My mechanic is going to hear about it tomorrow.

I attached a picture of the snapped cable behind the pedal assembly (Don't mind the blood, I might have cut myself somewhere along the way).

I will probably have the resolved before anyone replays, but still interested in any advice. Thanks.

Cable failure of the ``third kind": last evening the throttle cable broke at the pinching point inside the car. This is the weak-point of the cable. Fortunately about half the strands were still intact since they were able to slip loose in the pinching hole. With the help of tools from the owner of the house in front of which I had stopped I was able to loop and pinch the cable with a clamp and made it home in piano driving style (Bernd: thanks for your help! I do carry a spare cable in the car. Installation on site would have been awkward.


This is my 2nd cable issue on this car within 3 years (first was frying the cable solid due to heat from the exhaust).