Throttle cable snapped, wrong kind of spinner...

[KA1J]

So here I am leaving Boston, heading back to CT, everything running beautiful & I feel the throttle spin ever so freely with a broken cable & the bike immediately slowing down with no gas & me in the left hand lane at 70. Parked the bike, cranked the idle adjustment up as far as possible and that let me go about 40 MPH.

This worked kind of OK except 40ish on the interstate after dark isn't so good. I wrangled my fingers onto the syncing screws and was able to pull up on them to give me short periods of gas to overcome hills but still not so good. Managed to get into Rhode Island before I ran into my nemesis, construction... Had to come to a complete stop and with the engine wanting to race, that didn't fly with the stop & go.

Took a convenient exit & pulled off under a light to find where the line broke & it was at the throttle itself. At least I had 4" of bare throttle wire so I was able to keep tugging on the wire & keeping a tension on it allowed me to keep going. I knew the road I pulled off on led back to I-95 7-8 miles south so I drove with the left hand on the handlebars & the right holding the throttle wire. Finally managed to make the 80 some miles remaining intact & no other problems.

Looked on the web & it's unobtanium anymore 10M-26311-00 is for the XJ11 and that's a different # than the XS11 uses (3H3-26311-00-00) but it's discontinued also. Does the XS11 throttle cable even work on the XJ11?

I read this link http://www.chopcult.com/forum/showthread.php?t=166 but I don't know where around here to get the kind of raw throttle cable I need. Any suggestions of a readily available cable that would be long enough I can cut off the right amount & solder the ball back on & re-use the sheath? I'm dead in the water till I get this fixed.

Thanks

[Crazy Damian]

try here.

I'm not positive, I'm sure someone else will chime in on this but I think the cable is the same for 78-81 XS1100 and 82 XJ1100 Maxim.
Try this place.

http://www.oldbikebarn.com/Motion-Pr...category=74212

Damian

[crazy steve]

I suspect the only difference is the length of the cable, maybe the finish color. I can say from personally verifying it that the two ends are the same (same carb linkage and throttle sleeve), so finding a replacement shouldn't be that hard. MotionPro will even supply custom lengths I think....

[Shacknasty]

Most bicycle shops can make ya a new one. Or Flanders will sell ya the parts and you can make yer own.

[KA1J]

I got it fixed! The short story is that I went to a bicycle shop and bought a stainless steel bicycle cable which had something very similar to the handlebar end nub. I made it the same circumference as the original by using the dremel tool. It was a little wider but that's of no consequence so I left the width alone.

On the original cable at the carburetor end, there was a brass keeper and I discovered it was free to twirl, the reason being there was a sleeve that was soldered to the end of the wire and that sleeve slid into an enlarged hole and the keeper/nub was peened over to keep the nub from sliding out. I forced the wire out of the keeper/nub and unsoldered the tiny sleeve.

I measured the original length and cut the bicycle wire 1/3" short, thinking the original cable has probably stretched in length over the last 30 years. I slid the bicycle wire in, slid on the brass keeper/nub and then slid on the sleeve I removed from the original wire. I splayed the end of the wire so that there was a gap at the very end and then moved the sleeve to the very end and used silver solder and acid flux to fill in the gaps where I splayed the wire.

I then pressed the end of the wire into the keeper/nub and then heated up the keeper with a butane torch and added a bit more acid flux and another touch of silver solder to the end which anchored it perfectly. I used a file to smooth off the solder that flowed away from the end and the project was done.

So what I did was to reuse the sleeve and incorporate a stainless steel cable with reworked ends. The final cost was six dollars for the bicycle cable with the oversized sleeve/nub and that was all that was necessary to rebuild the throttle cable. I contacted Chacal about the one he had listed for $26 but he said that they were now out of stock and he has no replacements for them.

It took me a good three or four hours to discover what needed to be done but what I did works perfectly and if you break a cable, you can do exactly what I did and save yourself a whole lot of money.

Cheers,

[Fix]

I'm not positive, I'm sure someone else will chime in on this but I think the cable is the same for 78-81 XS1100 and 82 XJ1100 Maxim.
Try this place.

http://www.oldbikebarn.com/Motion-Pr...category=74212

Damian

I just installed this cable on my '78. It was about an inch longer overall, but works great so far.

[Shacknasty]

I got it fixed! The short story is that I went to a bicycle shop and bought a stainless steel bicycle cable which had something very similar to the handlebar end nub. I made it the same circumference as the original by using the dremel tool. It was a little wider but that's of no consequence so I left the width alone.

On the original cable at the carburetor end, there was a brass keeper and I discovered it was free to twirl, the reason being there was a sleeve that was soldered to the end of the wire and that sleeve slid into an enlarged hole and the keeper/nub was peened over to keep the nub from sliding out. I forced the wire out of the keeper/nub and unsoldered the tiny sleeve.

I measured the original length and cut the bicycle wire 1/3" short, thinking the original cable has probably stretched in length over the last 30 years. I slid the bicycle wire in, slid on the brass keeper/nub and then slid on the sleeve I removed from the original wire. I splayed the end of the wire so that there was a gap at the very end and then moved the sleeve to the very end and used silver solder and acid flux to fill in the gaps where I splayed the wire.

I then pressed the end of the wire into the keeper/nub and then heated up the keeper with a butane torch and added a bit more acid flux and another touch of silver solder to the end which anchored it perfectly. I used a file to smooth off the solder that flowed away from the end and the project was done.

So what I did was to reuse the sleeve and incorporate a stainless steel cable with reworked ends. The final cost was six dollars for the bicycle cable with the oversized sleeve/nub and that was all that was necessary to rebuild the throttle cable. I contacted Chacal about the one he had listed for $26 but he said that they were now out of stock and he has no replacements for them.

It took me a good three or four hours to discover what needed to be done but what I did works perfectly and if you break a cable, you can do exactly what I did and save yourself a whole lot of money.

Cheers,

Way to go! Silver solder is the correct stuff. The only thing better would be some pics.

[KA1J]

Yeah, it seems to be working great, better than it used to actually, feels like new. I think the braid on this SS bicycle wire is smoother than the original wire & the friction is less & being SS, it's stronger.

The important part is the length of wire coming out of the sheath, too much or too little and the throttle won't work properly. I measured the length of the original wire and it was 47" (This is for the XJ11) I figured there had to be a bit of stretch with 30 years of tension on it so I cut the new wire at 46.5" and it's just right and allows full adjustment.

Wonderful when things work out the way you hoped for. If I get another throttle cable I'll rework it the same way & make it a backup and take pics.