Tach Drive Cable Replacement

[Michael Oritt]

The inner drive cable on my 100's tachometer cable broke yesterday. Replacement drives are sold as a unit--outer jacket, inner drive and end fittings.
Would I be making a mistake to simply pull the inner drive from the new cable and avoid having to pull and replace the outer jacket?

 

[roscoe]

Michael,
If the break in the cable is clean and it broke due to age/fatigue I wouldn't hesitate to avoid pulling the housing out and just slide in a new cable. Just lubricate it lightly with the lubricant of your choice. I use Lubriplate and just a light coating. I wouldn't use anything that would cause drag on the cable. Do make sure both ends engage properly and that the end caps can be threaded all the way on. You don't want the cable inside to be under compression and you want as much engagement on both ends as you can have. Less than full engagement is ok to a degree but you don't really want the cable moving back and forth if possible. Sometimes a new cable won't quite be a match for an old housing and then it's time to bite the bullet and change both. It's always something, isn't it......

 

[AUSMHLY]

If you end up needing a new complete cable assembly, West Valley Instruments, hand makes them. Very good quality, and they charge for it, lol. I have one.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Thanks for the replies, fellas. Moss has the replacement cable (the full unit w/jacket and end fittings ) on back order so I think I will fish out the bottom part of the cable by undoing the drive and assuming a clean break see if West Valley will sell me just the drive cable

 

[jimmyr]

I did just that replacing only the inner cable; got it from Palo Alto Speedometer in Ca.

 

[Michael Oritt]

I did just that replacing only the inner cable; got it from Palo Alto Speedometer in Ca.

Jimmy--

Wonderful and thanks for the reference. Since the piece I was able to extract was only 15" in length I am going to disconnect the nut at the angle drive and hopefully pull out the bottom portion in one piece so I can give a supplier an accurate LOA.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Jimmy--

I was able to extract the other half of the cable at the bottom end. It looks like a clean break and I'm hopeful I can simply slide a replacement cable down the jacket from the top and be back in business.

I called Palo Alto Speedometer today and spoke with a fellow named Layton who was not certain they have the parts and asked me to send him an email with photos of the cable, showing what the ends look like.
He also said it would be helpful if he could reference your job and I'd appreciate your sending me your contact info and telling me approximately when they made the piece up for you. If you had the invoice that would be outstanding!

My email is: michael.oritt@gmail.com and thanks for your help.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Before hearing back from Palo Alto I located a replacement--jacket, terminals and core--at British Car Specialists. Its LOA is 33" which is the same dimension as the one in my car and I am hopeful I can simply drop in the drive cable without having to R&R the outer jacket.

 

[Michael Oritt]

The new tach cable from British Car Services arrived yesterday. Though the inner drive of the new cable was exactly the same length as the old one I decided against reusing the old jacket as the break in the old drive was at the point where the cable passed between the chassis and the vertical extension panel, which apparently created a hard spot.

Though this is the first time I have had to replace the inner driver since I bought the car 25 years/75,000 miles ago I saw no reason to perpetuate the problem, so I drilled a 1" hole high on the extension panel and routed the new cable through it. The new cable works fine and i think its lifetime will exceed mine.

 

[Michael Oritt]

Before tossing the old cable in the trash I thought that perhaps I could repurpose the lower nut into an interesting piece of jewely and after a bit of cutting and polishing this is the result.

 

[Bob_Spidell]

Nice! Seems appropriate, since we're essentially married to these cars.