• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

replacing choke cable

Share this page

Woodie

Woodie

Jedi Warrior
Offline
One of the tasks facing me this spring is the replacement of the choke cable. The current cable has no locking feature, and I am tired of driving with vice grips behind the knob. Having no idea what the back side of the dash looks like is this a dash in or dash out job. I assume I disconnect from the carbs and pull out the old cable, and then unscrew the mechanism on the dash and reinstall. So this should be a relatively short task to do,, what 5 or 6 beer??? Or should I get my 6 yr old to do the changeout cause he has smaller hands (he will not get any beer)
 
Try this as a fix, pull cable out slightly so you get about 4-5" out and use a pliers / needle nose to put a slight kink in the cable. Do not pull inner cable all of the way out as I unfortunately did this and it won't go back in. See if that fixes the issue of cable lock not holding. Replacement cable only $11.95 from MOSS so not bad pricewise. Remove the tach, two knurled knobs you can reach and pop pit. Can then reach the choke cable and unbolt.

Jack Laird can weigh in on this one. He's the one with addidng a kink in the cable trick.

My job tomorrow night is to get Choke cable replaced. Did mine 6 years ago and was having issues with friction level too high. Took two hands to pull cable out. Added a drop of oil on the cable and then all of a sudden too loose and twist lock would not hold. Discovered the kink trick after I tried to pull cable out and clean with brake fluid to no avail. Once cable is pulled all of the way out it will not go back in.
 
Try this as a fix, pull cable out slightly so you get about 4-5" out and use a pliers / needle nose to put a slight kink in the cable. Do not pull inner cable all of the way out as I unfortunately did this and it won't go back in. See if that fixes the issue of cable lock not holding. Replacement cable only $11.95 from MOSS so not bad pricewise. Remove the tach, two knurled knobs you can reach and pop pit. Can then reach the choke cable and unbolt.

Jack Laird can weigh in on this one. He's the one with addidng a kink in the cable trick.

My job tomorrow night is to get Choke cable replaced. Did mine 6 years ago and was having issues with friction level too high. Took two hands to pull cable out. Added a drop of oil on the cable and then all of a sudden too loose and twist lock would not hold. Discovered the kink trick after I tried to pull cable out and clean with brake fluid to no avail. Once cable is pulled all of the way out it will not go back in.
 
Here I come, make the slight bend like a table top mtn.

Does not need to be very big at all, just provides tension on the cable so it only moves when you move it.

FREE.
 
You guys don't have that BMC automatic choke?
Ragtops & Roadsters were giving them out a couple years ago.
The complete kit was free and it was a simple installation.
The kit came with full easy to understand instructions and a clothes pin, clip the clothes pin to hold the choke in any position you wanted :wink:
 
Hey I have that clothes pin kit ! :smile: Mine is even "custom matched" for my car - the clothes pin is sanded down to fine tune the idle (a full clotes pin blade was to high an idle....), previous owner had a piece of rubber tube that was slit along the length to wedge behind the choke pull handle. I do like Jacks idea better, allthough the clothes pin does have a certain charm...
 
Frank,

I was using one of those clothes pins for the past few months, will finally have time tonight to get choke reconnected, start up Bugsy and turn him around in ther garage to get better access to the PS A Pillar. Need to get a 7" Patch Panel welded in on the PS. After doing the A-Post on DS this should amount to nothing to do this one.
 
The "clothes peg" work-around is an age-old and elegant cable dodge, Jer!

The sheath is held in place with a BIG (3/4" IIRC) nut behind the dash. If you can get that loose and pull the assembly out about 6" there should be an obvious spring steel "clip" around the O.D. of the metal body... the "trick" is to re-tension that spring clip to give some resistance to the inner shaft when it is given a quarter-turn left or right after pulling it out the required distance to achieve the desired choke setting.
 
Back
Top