FINALLY managed to hook up a manual choke cable

[Evil D]

Man...this choke has been giving me fits. I dug out an old choke cable i had on a Mustang years ago and tried to install that, but the cable inside was way too stiff...basically a solid metal cable. I thought and thought, and ended up using a bicycle brake cable and it works flawlessly. There just doesn't need to be that much force to close the choke plate and pull it back open, and the cable needs a lot of flex to be able to bend the way it needs to go to close and open it. I'll try to get pics up later.

It's really ghetto..lots of zip ties involved..but that's sort of my thing :twisted:

[Safety Guy]

Good 'ol back yard engineering!

Or front yard, garage, carport, friend's house, depending on location...

You never know who will read this and use your idea, too!

Karl

[Evil D]

Good point...i'll try to get pics tomorrow. It's sort of "temporary for testing" right now..i think i can do a much better installation and make it much cleaner.

There's a part on the throttle linkage that i accidentally broke a while back...it's plastic and green, and when it broke the throttle sprung shut...so i had to zip tie it open..Well that green thing has a small screw in it..i'm not sure what it's for. I basically unhooked all the other linkages from the main choke shaft and used that little screw in the green thing to attach the end of the brake cable to, and then zip tied the cable sheath so it stays in one spot and routed the cable to the interior.

I couldn't even find a grommet going to the interior, so i had to unbolt the fender and run it up along the top of the fender and through the door...it's soooo ghetto lol. It's just sticking into the interior by the side view and it's just long enough to reach, but amazingly it's all you need really. I'm sure there's something going on with the computer and the rest of the carb...but i hope that going from electric to manual choke doesn't upset anything else....i think if i close the choke to where it would normally be and let it warm up, then open it up like it would normally operate, everything will be "fooled".

The best part is, my car finally has a little pep to it...i guess driving around with my throttle 75% closed will choke down the power a little LOL.

[CharlieZ]

I couldn't even find a grommet going to the interior, so i had to unbolt the fender and run it up along the top of the fender and through the door

With the driver side fender off you maybe could have run your choke cable thru the same rubber thingy as the hood release cable. Just a thought since I recently removed a hood release cable at the JY.

[Evil D]

Right now it's ran up under the corner of the fender and right through the door seam into the interior...it's half ass but the cable i had was just long enough to reach. I may end up drilling my own hole in the firewall and running it the right way and mount something on the dash and do it right.

I'm also gonna look into removing all the electric choke parts off the carb and try to get a cleaner mount set up for the cable. Right now it's just too damn cold to spend too much time outside playing with it. It's working awesome so far.

[htchbck]

Nice work on the ingenious engineering! I had a throttle cable rust up and break on my motorcycle once and after I finally got the rusted part out of the cable sleeve I went to AZ and bought one of those hood release cable kits and some throttle cable ends. Recored the original sleeve with the new cable, cut to fit and installed the ends. That was two years and a few thousand miles ago and not one bit of trouble out of it! Backyard fixes FTW!

[Evil D]

Here's the long awaited pics. It's crude, but functional. When it gets warmer out i'll try to make it a nicer install and i'm gonna take off all the electric choke crap but for now it's too cold to screw with.

On the carb end, just make sure the butterfly is allowed to move freely..i accidentally broke the green part, so you'll have to unhook that part properly (not sure how) and unhook anything else that effects the butterfly linkage. You can't see very well in the pic but there's an arch bent into the cable...this is important, as it allowed proper range of motion.

When you hook it up, you just wanna make sure you have enough cable on the interior side to open and close it all the way. If you ran it through the firewall it would be MUCH easier and cleaner but this works awesome in a pinch. The ziptie at the end of the cable sheath by the carb is to keep that end from moving around. Again...i'm sure if you put some time into it you can make a much cleaner installation than this.

By the way, the cable is off of a '86 General Bicycles Hustler Pro, so it's almost period correct

[bravekozak]

choke hole

I believe you should have the dash with the choke hole in it. I wish I had kept my gray 89 dash instead of throwing it out. Now I have to mount my choke cable under my brown 93 dash, instead of in it (metal reinforcement in behind). Please post a pic of the choke cable hole after you remove the plug. Also, could you please let me know what the radius of the circle is directly above the flat?