Re: type3 throttle cable

[Toby Erkson <air_cooled_nut@pobox.com>]

<x-flowed>I don't remember the exact mileage but on my way to college, in the 
Cascade mountains around 1648 feet my throttle cable broke.  It was 
September of 1990 and I had just pulled over into the wide shoulder at 
the top of the hill I just climbed, car packed with all my freshman 
stuff.  I got out to check the engine and everything was fine from the 
view underneath so I got back into my baby and pushed on the accelerator 
-- nuthin'!  Lucky for me I was quickly able to figure out what happened 
AND I had my travel tool box with me (which, in all honesty, should be 
in a roll-around cart :-D ) and used my small vice-grips to hold the 
cable at the tunnel, next to the foot pedal, while I used my large 
vice-grips to actuate the throttle.  I would rotate the vice-grips to 
wrap the cable around the jaws, thus shortening the cable and open the 
throttles (I just had the car converted to 1641cc & 36mm Dual Dells 
while I was in the Navy).  Drove about 65 miles from that mountain top 
to the college campus in Ashland.

Did I mention it was night and I had a manual transmission?

That was the only time I've had an accelerator cable break.  In South 
Carolina my clutch cable broke but I was lucky that it happened only a 
couple blocks from the Naval base (back when it existed in Charleston) 
so I was able to drive it to the on-base rental garages and fix it.  I 
guess the 3.5 day trip from Oregon in the middle of January took it's 
toll on that cable ;-)

   Toby Erkson  --  air_cooled_nut@pobox.com
   Two '72 VW Squarebacks, '95 VW Jetta ~ WIP, '81 Gold Wing, '73 Porsche 914
   http://www.icbm.org/
   Portland, Oregon



Jim Adney wrote:

> This all seems rather odd to me. In 35+ years of driving type 3s I've NEVER 
> broken a throttle cable. In that whole time I've also replaced exactly ONE 
> throttle cable in a customer's car. I'm just guessing, but I suppose that the FI is easier on the cable than carbs, especially aftermarket carbs.

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