The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Choke and Throttle Cables

I bought replacement choke and throttle cables with the knobs. I installed them on the dash and ran the cables out thru the grommet. They seem to be excessively long and loop all the way over the valve cover. Do replacement cables usually require trimming to fit correctly?

Yes. Pull the knob way out & cut the caseing to the correct lenght. Push the knob in & cut the core to the right lenght.

That's what I was thinking. I know enought to avoid sharp bends to prevent binding. I called the vendor where I bought the cables from and they told me they were direct replacements. They asked if I wanted to talk to a technician. The one I got was a smart alleck. He said the cable length was dependent on whether I had an automatic choke or not, and that I could always trim the cable and buy a new one. Not much help there. Needless to say this vendor went from the top of my list straight to the bottom.

Which vendor was it, Jim? Maybe you can save the rest of us some trouble.

Tom,
The vendor is highly regarded with links on this site. I don't think any good would come from naming them in a public forum based on my bad experience. If they continue to provide this type of service it will become quickly known.

What year truck do you have? GMC or Chevrolet? 53-55 GMC and 54-55 Chevrolet trucks with an automatic Hydra-Matic)transmission did not have either a choke or a throttle cable (the vendor's rep might have had a hard time telling/selling you a correct length cable for those trucks).

My long-term experience is that cutting the cable to a short (exact fit) length decreases the useful life expectancy of a throttle/choke cable, especially if you will heavily use your truck. Over the life of a well-used truck, you will be removing and re-installing the carburetor every so often. Tightening, loosening, and retightening the cable-stops puts a bend in the cable and the cable will eventually break at the bend point. Then you have to trim back the cable.

If the cable is trimmed-to-length to start with, you will more quickly find the cable is too short. Yes, this will not happen soon on a truck that is not driven often. I do however think this is one reason why the cables are longer than needed when they are new (another reason is perhaps so the cables will fit on different sizes of trucks).

Leave a little slack in the cables when you measure them to be trimmed-to-fit.

The truck is a 50 chevy 1/2 ton with a 53 235 and 4 sp transmission. The vendors tech knew this. The cables run from the firewall all the way out to the radiator. The cables I bought were for a 47 thru 53.