Post by evilgenius on Mar 18, 2011 18:00:45 GMT -6
First off, "hi" to all - haven't been around much over the winter, hope everyone is well. 
So...now that I'm getting temps up past that magic 40 degree mark in the mornings, I'm on the road again (and tickled to no end to be so!).
Take off this morning and all's well...little dark where DST just kicked in, scoot running good and everything just feeling right. All's well with the universe for those few minutes - you know the feeling.
Pull up to a stop, and turn onto another road. Not 100ft after takeoff, something goes 'pop!', and suddenly my throttle's -dead-.
OK...no panic...pulled over. Unfortunately this is a back road with no e-lane whatsoever (just a couple of feet's worth of grass and a creek!) and it's rush hour on the way to the industrial park, so there's maniacs hell-bent on beating the clock coming through in droves. Location really is everything, after all...was contemplating backing up to the intersection, but found a drive up ahead that looked like a promising spot for some impromptu repair work.
Sure enough, inspection found my throttle cable (which is just about thick enough to make a pencil lead jealous, I might add!) had snapped off about 8-10" below the grip. Boo.
So, there wasn't much to be done at that point. It was almost exactly halfway there, with home being twisty backroad and work being mostly 4-lane, so I chose the 'continue to work' option.
Pushing was decidedly not on my agenda for the morning. I pulled the remnants of the cable through, but could not actuate the cable without running another loop around the back of the scoot - after which, of course, there was precious little length of cable left to work with. What I had was one little nub that reached about to the center of my pillion seat. Having little choice, I proceeded to work, actuating the throttle cable wrapped around my pointer finger on my left hand -behind my back- while steering/braking with the right hand. Woohoo!
Got me there, with about a 25 minute delay. Plucked off the old cable at lunch, and sent the Evil Wife around to the local bike shops to try and get something to get home with. Predictably, she had no luck. Crappy Honda dealership couldn't do anything because "he had no way of knowing what the length of cable was", despite having both pieces right in front of him. I swear, our local H powersports are about some of the sorriest lot I've ever seen. Local Yammy dealer was much more helpful (big thanks to I75 Yamaha for their help!), but ultimately no better at procuring the needed cable.
In a last ditch effort, went to Tractor Supply to try and find something workable. Quite a few throttle cables, but of course mower-oriented and thereby unuseful. I did find a spool of some much better-looking cable, but unfortunately without any way of making a terminator for it, similarly unuseful. There were, however, some little clamps for said wire that would enable me to put the cable back together. Eureeka! Sure enough, the clamps held the cable back together just fine...may have lost maybe an inch.
To my great dismay, I found that my awesome cable repair was all for nought, as routing the cable back down the tree and such with those (now seemingly much bigger) clamps 'as is' was not going to happen.
Having few options left, I stripped the longer remaining cable of it's sheathing, reconnected to the carby, ran it up through a tab slot of a removed body panel on the right side, wrapped it around my right hand...and rode it right the F home. ;D
I'm not saying I broke any land speed records doing so, but it actually worked out pretty well for such a desperate measure. Putt-putted on back to the house (even managing to enjoy the ride, such as it were!), and I should be able to get a new cable to install by early next week.
On a more serious note..."don't try this at home, kids". While I'm pretty stoked that I was able to resolve the situation by wits and (minimal) elbow grease alone, I would've been -seeeriously- hosed if I lost grip on that remaining cable while scootin' down the road and got it wrapped up in the back tire.
Consider this a precautionary tale, to be emulated in emergency use only.
So...now that I'm getting temps up past that magic 40 degree mark in the mornings, I'm on the road again (and tickled to no end to be so!).
Take off this morning and all's well...little dark where DST just kicked in, scoot running good and everything just feeling right. All's well with the universe for those few minutes - you know the feeling.
Pull up to a stop, and turn onto another road. Not 100ft after takeoff, something goes 'pop!', and suddenly my throttle's -dead-.
OK...no panic...pulled over. Unfortunately this is a back road with no e-lane whatsoever (just a couple of feet's worth of grass and a creek!) and it's rush hour on the way to the industrial park, so there's maniacs hell-bent on beating the clock coming through in droves. Location really is everything, after all...was contemplating backing up to the intersection, but found a drive up ahead that looked like a promising spot for some impromptu repair work.
Sure enough, inspection found my throttle cable (which is just about thick enough to make a pencil lead jealous, I might add!) had snapped off about 8-10" below the grip. Boo.
So, there wasn't much to be done at that point. It was almost exactly halfway there, with home being twisty backroad and work being mostly 4-lane, so I chose the 'continue to work' option.
Pushing was decidedly not on my agenda for the morning. I pulled the remnants of the cable through, but could not actuate the cable without running another loop around the back of the scoot - after which, of course, there was precious little length of cable left to work with. What I had was one little nub that reached about to the center of my pillion seat. Having little choice, I proceeded to work, actuating the throttle cable wrapped around my pointer finger on my left hand -behind my back- while steering/braking with the right hand. Woohoo!
Got me there, with about a 25 minute delay. Plucked off the old cable at lunch, and sent the Evil Wife around to the local bike shops to try and get something to get home with. Predictably, she had no luck. Crappy Honda dealership couldn't do anything because "he had no way of knowing what the length of cable was", despite having both pieces right in front of him. I swear, our local H powersports are about some of the sorriest lot I've ever seen. Local Yammy dealer was much more helpful (big thanks to I75 Yamaha for their help!), but ultimately no better at procuring the needed cable.
In a last ditch effort, went to Tractor Supply to try and find something workable. Quite a few throttle cables, but of course mower-oriented and thereby unuseful. I did find a spool of some much better-looking cable, but unfortunately without any way of making a terminator for it, similarly unuseful. There were, however, some little clamps for said wire that would enable me to put the cable back together. Eureeka! Sure enough, the clamps held the cable back together just fine...may have lost maybe an inch.
To my great dismay, I found that my awesome cable repair was all for nought, as routing the cable back down the tree and such with those (now seemingly much bigger) clamps 'as is' was not going to happen.
Having few options left, I stripped the longer remaining cable of it's sheathing, reconnected to the carby, ran it up through a tab slot of a removed body panel on the right side, wrapped it around my right hand...and rode it right the F home. ;D
I'm not saying I broke any land speed records doing so, but it actually worked out pretty well for such a desperate measure. Putt-putted on back to the house (even managing to enjoy the ride, such as it were!), and I should be able to get a new cable to install by early next week.
On a more serious note..."don't try this at home, kids". While I'm pretty stoked that I was able to resolve the situation by wits and (minimal) elbow grease alone, I would've been -seeeriously- hosed if I lost grip on that remaining cable while scootin' down the road and got it wrapped up in the back tire.
Consider this a precautionary tale, to be emulated in emergency use only.
..BAD TO THE BONE..
