Throttle Cable

I can't study a Haynes manual without a good strong coffee so that was of course the first step.

I gathered all the tools for the job and set about the dismantling to get to the throttle wire. It was during this process that I discovered yet another item wrong with Lola. The outer cable for the throttle was actually 2 old halves (of different cables) taped together to act as the carrier for the inner wire which had weakened at the join and snapped. I am glad it happened in my shed and not miles from home though, I should at least be happy about that.

So putting in a new inner wire would have been relatively painless, only now I had to clearly replace the whole cable and from everything I had read so far, this could be a nightmare job on an old Vespa without the old outer to help pull the cable through the body channel.

It's OK, it's still early, it can't be that hard-I'll be scootin' within an hour. HA!

Man what a job that turned out to be. The outer cable kept getting caught inside the frame as I tried to thread it thru from the handlebar end. I stopped and tried from the other end too, my fingers were red, my hands hurt and I was seriously getting peeved off. It had been nearly 2 hours of battling with it when all of a sudden (after a break and another coffee) it popped over it's obstruction within the frame and I could finally grab it. I was leaning over the scooter with my arm as far up the inner channel as I could reach via the fuel tank cavity to try to feel the cable coming through. I could feel vibrations through the steel as it was getting closer but the only thing that got it through was twisting and turning it hard in my hands as I pushed it through. It was getting late now and my scooting mood had subsided somewhat. I decided to pack up and call it a day. At least I had another crap part off and a decent one on.