I 've been messing with fitting an accelerator cable today. I looked an automotive cable it looked and measured (with vernier) exactly the same as mountain bike brake cable. So I made a cable up from some brake cable I had in the garage. The pedal feel seemed fairly stiff, I put this down to the fact the cable has to loop round through 180 degrees to enter the weber carb linkage. I then changed the entire cable for one I had made from mountain bike gear cable.

For those of you that don't know bike gear cable outer is of a different design to that of brake cable and is also much stiffer. This allows the cable to be routed with fairly tight bends and the inner cable still runs smoothly.

problem solved, the pedal feel was now much smoother. Question is, is the gear cable up to the job ? Brake cable is 1.5mm diameter, gear is 1.3mm.

I have been riding mountain bike for years and have snapped very few gear or brake cables (despite riding in some very harsh conditions).

Anyone got any options ? Or even used something along these lines themselves ?

I haven't used one a you describe, but i wouldn't have thought it would be under any great load as long as you get the correct open and closed points set so as not to stretch the cable, the actual pressure on the carb linkage isn't that high really

Jason

those were my thoughts, just interested in how the cable might fair in a hot engine bay, as opposed to outside in the open on a bike ?

It is the same stuff, do not worry about it.

I'll keep a couple of spare inner cables in the car just in case.

If you are after cable kits, I don't think you could do much worse than citreon/renault/peugeot throttle cable kits. You get inner, outer, teflon liner and a mirriad assortment of end adjuster ifttings and a screw clamp fitting for the end.




Enjoy

Have used the teflon lined gear bike gear(not brake, as you say) on all the race karts I've built over the years. Never had to replace one yet, and on a kart you are on and off the throttle a lot!

Also, if you cut the black plastic off electrical connector blocks, they make excellent compact cable securing clamps

Cheers

Fred WB

top tip Fred. Been struggling with the same set up for a while. Got the bike gear cable but needed something to clamp it.

Thanks

Mike

I've used two brass "live" terminals from inside 13A UK plugs to secure the cable with. Good to hear that the cable should be strong enough. ReMan was round this evening and we both looked at the cable and agreed it did look thin and not really strong enough for the job. I guess it is stronger than it looks.