Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Roadster Throttle Cable Replacement

Not sure how Henry did it, but he brought one back from MMC....it is a warranty replacement for me as Williams gave a 12 month warranty when I pruchased the car. So far it has cost them one lambda sensor, a wiper blade and a throttle cable. It has got them a lot of good will from me and I keep giving them money for "improvements"!

That's funny Peter.....I keep giving Williams money as well....it must go with our two cars being purchased at the same time!

I do feel a tad guilty today though....I was going to,talk further with Williams about alternative steering wheels and I got sort of tempted with a Brooklands steering wheel whilst at the factory! Sorry Mike if you read this!

Returning to the throttle cable issue, I'm going to get a couple of spares made up by Venhill. I used them for several years when I was restoring motorbikes and they are very good.

So, it is done!

Took me about 45 min.

Here is how to do it on a 2009 Roadster.

1. Remove the under steering column shroud, fixed by 1 or 2 x 13mm nuts and penny washers to the lower bracket. There is no upper fixing, it just wedges up under the under dash panels.

Now clean out all the muck and fluff inside the panel and Hoover out all the bits of dirt and fluff behind the pedals. Without the column shroud you can see much more clearly the mess that is there.

2. Slacken off all the free movement the adjuster, located on the bracket on the engine side of the bulkhead, will give you. You need a 10mm open ended spanner.
This isn’t fun because there is a thick cable run that nicely gets in the way and a clip holding this to the bulkhead is in just the wrong place!

3. With the cable slack pull the cable quadrant on the throttle body to fully open, this will allow you to remove the nipple; it pulls out sideways to the right.

4. With the cable free you can pull the rubber block out from the bracket over the inlet manifold.

5. Bring the end of the cable round so it is running straight from the pedal box, and secure it. Or get an assistant to hold it!

6. Twist and bend yourself into the footwell, taking the following tools:
a) Fine nosed pliers
b) Fine nosed wire cutters
c) A wedge shaped block of wood about 2” x 1”. Use this to hold the top of the pedal arm away from the carpet.

7. Now using your pliers remove the split pin from the pivot pin and remove from the “U” shaped fitting on the end of the cable. Get your assistant to pull the cable back into the engine bay.

8. Bend the carpet away from the hole and wonder how you are going to get the cable and bracket back through the hole.

9. Look at the bracket mentioned in 2, above. The slot isn’t large enough to slide the ferrule through, only the cable. There is a 10mm adjustment nut on the end of the ferrule.
You have 2 options:

a) undo the adjustment nut so it comes off from the end of the threaded ferrule, then you can slide the cable through the slot, pull the cable and “U” fitting through the hole and your old cable is free. But then you have, at some stage, to re-thread the 10mm nut on the ferrule and there isn’t any room unless you have thin strong fingers to do this.

b) The bracket is held to the bulkhead with 8mm nuts, one top, one bottom. You can easily remove the nuts and the bracket and then removing the old and fitting the new cable is easy. Then you slide the new cable through into the footwell and start to attach the two nuts. At this point you discover the nuts are not proper captive nuts. The lower one is held(ish) by a bracket and the top one by a blob of sealant.

On balance option a) is probably the best. I chose option b) and needed a helper to jam the head of the bolt with a screwdriver whilst I tightened the nuts. Use Loctite.

10. Assembly is mostly the reverse, fitting the split pin into the piviot pin is fun, you need two hands and there is no space. Strong fingers and nails help.

11. When you think you have finished you haven’t as of course you can’t properly adjust everything without warming the engine as if the cable is too tight the engine won’t idle at the right speed.

12. Go for a nice relaxing drive and when you get back you can finish adjusting the cable.

Good tips...thanks for sharing Peter.

Useful information Peter. I have taken a copy of this for future reference when the need arises!

I take it there wasn't enough room for a camera in the footwell?

By the way, on the Series 1, the throttle cable can rub on the steering column, and I had to fit an extra C clip to hold it out of the way.

It was like the Black Hole of Calcutta down there!

The cable is held well away from the steering column by a zip tie that holds it to part of the cable loom.

Interestingly the fraying was caused by the cable exiting the sheath through a metal ferrule at a non-optimal angle so that as the cable pulls open the throttle it rubs on the loert lip of the ferrule, the wider the throttle opening the more it rubs. The hole in the ferrule is noticably oval. A total of 4 main strands had failed, about 40% of the total.

The solution requires the bracket holding the end of the cable outer and which is bolted to the inlet manifold is re-angled so the cable doesn't rubthe edge of the ferrule. I think a 1.5mm thickness washer under the rear mount may do this. More to do!

Solitaire Maglite do a pencil torch which is light enough (Ha!) and small enough to hold in your mouth. It was invaluable when I rebuilt my MGB for under-dash work.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/maglite-solitaire

I have one of those torches that has a strap around your head. works really well. bought it but it quickly became mine for owrking in or under the mog.

I have an older version of this
head torch

which I have used on boats and cars, very small and good directional light