I went out to go for a ride this weekend and as I turned the timer hangrip I snapped the cable. I have a inner replacment wire and as I began to feed it in from the bar end it stopped as I inspected the outer cable near the neck the outer cable broke. The good news is this was my tight spot. Now I have my horn button cover screws out and removed the set screw holding the barrel that hold my outer cable. I was able to push the barrel out a bit with a piece of tungsten I had. Pushing up on the bottom of the broken cable does not seem to move it. Is there any trick to getting this out of the bars.
Can I get this outer cable from someone like MSC Grainger or McMaster Carr. Its a long lawn mower cable right?
Timer cable
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Re: Timer cable
The barrel sometimes sticks in the bar because of dirt, rust, crud (remove set screw!)
Remove handgrip, spay inside generously with WD40, push and pull from the center vigorously, it will usually come out.
Once it reaches the slot you can use a punch or screw driver.
If really stuck a wire feed tape can push it out.
You can buy Bowden (lawn mower) cables from Lowe's, your local lawnmower repair shop has a stack of used ones if you want patina.
Jerry
Remove handgrip, spay inside generously with WD40, push and pull from the center vigorously, it will usually come out.
Once it reaches the slot you can use a punch or screw driver.
If really stuck a wire feed tape can push it out.
You can buy Bowden (lawn mower) cables from Lowe's, your local lawnmower repair shop has a stack of used ones if you want patina.
Jerry
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Re: Timer cable
Thanks Jerry, I did get it out last night. I had to use a long 1/8 pin punch to get it moving sneaking it between the horn button wires. Then bend a 8 penny nail several times to get it knocked back to the slot. I have 3 different sizes of asphalt wire loom, but I don't think the outer cable will make it past the light and horn wires with this on it. I suppose I can put some heat shrink on the outer cable where it passes the wires to make sure I'm not shorting things out. I had some conveyor spring wire that I pushed through as I removed the old cable, but the ID is too big and It ended up being wound the oppisite way. Oh well! gotta spend some Money.
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Re: Timer cable
I ended up buying a lawn mower replacement cable from the local tractor supply. The new cables have the outer black covering and they have a liner for the inner cable to keep from rusting. The OD of the cable is bigger than the original so it did not screw onto the barrel that holds the outer cable in the handlebar. I cut the bends off the inner cable that came with the new cable and removed it. I then took a length of 1/2 copper pipe and used it to keep the cable from flying around in the back of my lathe. I found the best size drill bit that fit in the outer cable and chucked it in the tailstock backwards holding the flutes in the chuck. This was to give the short length of cable sticking out some support. I used a file to try to reduce the OD so it would thread on the barrel. The first attempt resulted in a snag and un winding the outer cable. So I cut the inch long bad spot off and ran the lathe in reverse filing on the bottom so it would wind the outer cable together. When the OD matched the original cable dimension it still didn't just wind right into the barrel, so I used a thread file to cut some grooves in the now flattend outer cable. It did get a little thin before it would screw on so some of the cable was sticking out of the other end of the barrel. At this point I grabbed the cable that made it through the barrel with needle nose pliers and the barrel turned much better onto the cable. As it screwed on it went past my file job and onto the unfiled portion of the cable. So it is a very strong assembly now. This took about 35 minutes but the replacement cable only cost $7 and it feels better than it ever has.