broken throttle cable

[neil]

hi,

recently my throttle cable broke at the crimped end where the cable travels thru the pedal bushing. i checked all sources for the cable including all for dealerships in the east bay. i was told that the part was "obsolete" and no longer available. none of the after market sources had the cable either. to make matters worse no mechanic was willing to try a retrofit for fear of liability. this car was purchased new by me in '93 and well maintained, and as a result was running beautifly at 118,000 miles. i was not about to have it towed to the junk yard. i gave it some thought and came up with a sound method of replacement that i did myself. probably just as good as the original. if anyone out there is having the same problem i would be very happy to share the step by step process. also as an emergency measure to get home, one can put a nickel in the throttle stop at the engine. this will give about 2500 rpm at no load, and on the level in the city will allow about 40 to 45 mph after a couple of blocks, and about 60 plus on the freeway. just try to minimize shifting from part or neutral into drive and especially into reverse. my sho is a '93 automatic 3.2 liter.

 

[SHOZ123]

You can get new cable ends at http://www.sherco-auto.com

 

[neil]

SHOZ123:
You can get new cable ends at http://www.sherco-auto.com

thanks for the info, however when the cable breaks its to short to just crimp on a new end. what i did was to pull the old cable out, **** the inside of the cable housing and the throttle mechanism. i then back fed through the fire wall a bicycle cable so the barrel end rests against the pedal bushing, then i attached the cable to the throttle by means of a cable clamp which is a small brass fitting about 5/16" in diameter and a little less than 1/2" long its threaded thru the center with a set screw to lock the cable which goes thru a hole drilled in the middle. it slides thru the hole in the throttle linkage where the oem cable had its barrel shaped fixed end attached. the diameter of my cable clamp was too large so i had to chop the head off a long screw and chuck it up in a drill, i then placed a file in a vice and brought down the diameter to the necessary 1/4" also the hole that the cable slides thru had to be drilled larger. it works fine, it would have been a little easier had i been able to get the right size cable clamp, but i couldn't. the oem cable is stainless and the bike cable is not but it is braided and strong and the tube it goes thru is lubed. anyway i have a spare cable in the car and all i need to put it in is a screwdriver and a pair of plyers to hold the cable clamp while i'm tightening down on the cable with the set screw. i bought my sho new in '93 for 18,999 before taxes and fees. does that vendor you recomended have the plastic hub caps or a retrofit of some sort?

 

[SHOZ123]

Part number CC539

 

[RonPorter]

You can also contact Al Fitz at:

http://www.alfitz.com/sho/

My former '95 was down to a single strand of cable, and Al got me a replacement within a day.

While you're at it, another good thing to check is to make sure that the TB butterfly opens all the way. Mine didn't,neither with the old cable nor the new one. I installed some hardware store "U" clips on the gas pedal end to get enough "pull" to open the TB buterfly all the way.

 

[DavidT]

I ordered a used cable from Russ at RCM. He was a lot cheaper than anyone else, I mean EVERYONE else. I got it within a few days.
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