Small Advances

 It's been a while since I added anything here, so what's been happening? Not much really until this weekend (the hottest so far this year) I have been to Scotland to visit my son & meet my new granddaughter (4 weeks - awwww). But this is a car blog, so you won't care about that.

First on the agenda yesterday was the creaky suspension. I've now received the superflex bushes to replace the rod ends in the rear suspension, so they came with little pouches of assembly grease. I took the front wishbones off, took out the crush tubes & re-fitted them with a little grease & all is now smooth & quiet - at the front. The rear lower arms are still "singing", but that's a job for another day.

Today's task was to "lengthen" the throttle, by which I mean increase the pedal travel for the same amount of throttle opening. The problem is the motorbike throttle bodies, they are set up for a twist grip throttle, so require very little cable motion. Connect that to a car pedal & you get a very sensitive throttle which means unless you temper it by allowing a little clutch slip, you can get a very jerky ride.

As you can see, the cable didn't take the best route, running at an angle out of the adjuster.

There's also an odd thing like a fork-end joining the pedal to the cable - it's pivoted & working perfectly OK, but there's two of it welded together - maybe the car had twin throttle cables once?

First job then, separate the forks & change the cable from a bike gear cable to a thicker brake cable - which means cutting the nipple down to fit. Then re-drill the "flag" on the pedal to move the cable a full inch closer to the pivot, increasing the travel by over 1/3. Then (arse) cut the nipple down a little more to get full motion in the fork again.

Now I had the travel, but because the cable attachment on the pedal has moved by an inch, the fixed adjuster on the pedal box didn't line up any more. I spent ages poking round the garage looking for something to hold the adjuster further from the bulkhead, but I didn't really like the idea as it'd add load to a thin flange on the pedal box. Then I noticed an un-used riv-nut in the pedal box roof & unusually it was the right thread for the adjuster & in about the right place - 'stonishing.

The next job was to cut down the pedal down-stop, so the pedal could travel - further down. It was something I'd fitted as there was nothing but the cable stopping the pedal when I bought the car, so that was an easy fix, then I noticed the cable outer wasn't aligned with the adjuster - a common cause of failure on kit car cables. There was nowhere to fit a bracket to hold a P-clip, so I forced a 3" length of old fuel hose over the adjuster & that keeps the cable outer in line - sometimes I can be quite clever.......

...... and just as I was thinking that I realised there was now nothing stopping the pedal falling through 90 degrees, right to the footwell floor.

I considered many many things, a cable, a welded on stop, a length of cable outer over the cable. I went inside & made a coffee. When I went back out I considered another load of alternatives, none of which appealed, either because I couldn't get a drill in, or there would be a risk of the pedal getting tangled, or it might interfere with another control. In the end I was "struck by the bleedin' obvious". There was already a 6mm hole above the pedal "flag" where the adjuster now wasn't, so put a wide headed bolt in there & it would hit the flag which (phew) I hadn't cut off. Perfect.

I set the cable up with the pedal at idle, wedged it down with some wood & went to see where the throttle linkage was, it was bang on wide open - no adjustment required.

I've taken the car round the block & it is indeed more controllable. Little by little the Stylus improves.