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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Sticky Throttle

R S Hughes
Just to say I changed my throttle cable as per the thread that appeared over the last few weeks with a Venhill Kit. Wow, what a difference. It's like a new car. it's so smooth. The best £10.45 I've spent on the car. I've been mucking around lubricating it every so often for the past 8 years - waste of time. Wish I had done it sooner. My theory that they become or are sticky could be due to the gauge of the inner wire. with the old one, even slightly bent the cable slides smoothly. Take it to the radius when fixed in the engine bay, it becomes tighter. The venhill kit has a slightly smaller gauge wire which may cope better with the tight radius/route that the cable takes.
Cheers
Nigel Axtell

It is surprising how much difference a decent Venhill type cable makes.
Glad it worked for you too!
JB Anderson

x2........ I'm chuffed it worked for you as well as for me, Nigel. It's a zillion times better than even a brand-spanking mg spares cable!
RS Hughes


Can you provide the specs on the cable you selected?

Or did you just get an approximate length and cut to fit? The USA web site is provided below:

http://www.venhillusa.com/products.html

Their web site provides a drop down box to select for specific cable types and lengths.

Thanks for any additional information!

Mike
Buffalo, NY
>>>>>>>>>>>
Mike Pelone

Hi Mike.
This looks like the kit I used and about the same price. It's a universal throttle cable kit from the same site you posted.

As previously mentioned you'd likely get two cables out of it, barring the A/F adjuster (the Venhill adjuster would be okay, but it's metric) and the yoke for the carb end of the cable.

Good luck!

Rod.

http://www.venhillusa.com/venhill-universal-motorcycle-throttle-cable-kit.html
RS Hughes

Rod:

Thanks for recommendation.
Wow! That's a lot of extra hardware...

Were you able to salvage at least one end of the Venhill cable?

My car is still in storage - so my memory of what attaches to the gas pedal inside the car is a little fuzzy - but I do remember at the carb end that I cut off whatever was there since it was fraying, etc.

Mike




Mike Pelone

Mike - here's what I did. I hope it helps you.

At one end of the Venhill wire is a very small preformed nipple.
At the pedal end of the 1500 cable the nipple is like a barrel shape. The nipples in the kit are drilled thru the radius, so I drilled one thru the axis (2mm drill) then counterbored one end (4.5mm) which provided a solder well. I pulled the wire thru it and soldered the preformed nipple into the well.

That's one end sorted.

After some careful measuring I cut the sheath and wire to length.

I reused the adjuster from the knackered original cable as it is the proper imperial thread. You can use the supplied new adjuster, but it's metric.
I also reused the original clevis yoke that attaches to the carb linkage bell-crank. That part is not in the kit - it's specific to the SU carb linkage.

I found the remaining large nipple was slightly too long to fit inside the clevis yoke, but a few strokes of a file took care of that.I threaded the wire thru the radial drilling of the nipple and splayed the wires before pulling the nipple snug and soldering it to the wire. The small excess of wire poking out from the solder joint was easy to dress with the file.

I used a 100 watt soldering iron and ordinary soft solder, by the bye.

There are a couple of little cautions.

When you cut the sheath (if you cut it) it will cut okay with a 24TPI hacksaw, but take your time so you don't distort the metal winding.

Where the cable pierces the firewall on my car the metal was bent so the wire was not straight to the pedal when the pedal was at the closed throttle position - it was deflected sharply towards the back of the car, so I carefully changed the angle of the hole in the firewall by putting a 3/16" machine screw thru it with a nut finger tight and just tweaked it into place. It's important for the wire to be in line at the closed throttle position as that's where the spring tension is at the least.

Mike, I apologise for this being a bit long winded - it's intended to help you. It's a dead easy job if you take your time and you're careful about measuring (use the old cable as a pattern) and you will, I promise, be astonished how much better it is than the stock cable.

And it's cheaper........ Happy days!

Rod.
RS Hughes

I meant to add that since I did mine I've done two more. One for a Mk3 Cortina which I wish was mine and another for a '72 Mini which I am heartily glad is not mine. I always detested the wretched things.

Both got rave reviews.

I'm waiting for another kit to make up for a GT6.
RS Hughes

Rob:

O.K. - got it..

This is likely to be the first "little" project once the car arrives from its winter sleep...

Thanks for the details...

Mike P.
Mike Pelone

all i done was get a length of outer teflon bike cable which i think they are all like that now which cost £1.50, cut nipple off carb end of inner cable, swapped outer and put one of them small fittings on the end of the cable that are on the end of the choke cable. .job done in about 3 mins. perfect.
bob.
bob taylor

Mike
I did as Rob did. I used 2 new nipples, 2 ferrules for the cable ends & used the existing fittings on the throttle linkage. Lots of bit left over, as Rob said, enough to make another.
Nigel Axtell

Bob - that's a good idea. Wish I had thought of it (speaking as a tight git) :-)
RS Hughes

I did experiment with push bike Teflon outer sleeves normally used for gear changing and rear brakes on mountain bikes, but it always seemed a bit of a cobbled together effort, and I was never completely satisfied with it, so found the Venhill kit on line and did a proper job of it.

Has been fine for about 8 or 9 years now, so no complaints from me!
JB Anderson

This thread was discussed between 27/04/2015 and 29/04/2015

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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