D.I.Y. throttle cable

[Dr.Lighthouse]

This afternoon I spent about €2.00 and saved £20.00

My Seagull came with a broken throttle cable: the carburettor end was missing.
So I went to the local motorbikeshop and bought a (moped) throttle cable and a new cable sleeve.

I took my (16 Watts) soldering iron, removed the tiny ring from the original cable and soldered it back onto the new one.
One snip with the wire cutters and the job was nearly done:
I used a locksmith's file to remove the excess solder and that was really it !

(As one can see I had to re-use the original sleeve-ends, since the new ones were a fraction too large to fit both carb and lever)



And guess where I found plenty of NGK A6's, SAE 140 and starterrope-by-the-meter?

... In the local lawn-mower shop !

[ALAN]

You sound as if you may be an old motorcyclist as I was.

We always improvised if we could not get what we wanted for our old bikes.

I have also improvised a throttle cable from a pushbike gear cable. The only problem I found was that the cable was stainless steel and did not take kindly to being soldered so I braised a nipple on the end and it works perfectly.

As I use my Forty Plus as an auxilliary engine I plan to make a long cable to the steering position on my boat to simplify control, should the main engine fail.

Happy Seagulling.

Regards.

Alan.

[Swami]

An equally effective home made custom length accellerator cable can be made by using 1/4" steel automotive brake line tubing (or else 1/4" copper tubing as the outer sheath and then some small diam fencing wire as inside cable. In my putt-putt boats of yore I used this system for remote throttle at the rear of the boat for centred mounted engines. The outer tubes can be run around the ribs wherever needed with nipples or bends as required made on the ends. Some thick oil or grease fed into the tubes when first made, the ends sealed with a grommet, and they last for ever. Such a system could work well for a rear-mounted Seagull requiring a more forward-positioned throttle adjustment, except a flexible tube would need to be used for the last bit to allow steerage!