Right Fresh Air Vent Cable 54 Aero

[vettelang]

My fresh air vent cable is frozen. I would like to retain the original knob and bezel while putting on a replacement cable. The question is has anyone successfully removed the knob from the inner cable? And how does it then get reattached - crimped, welded, ...
Thanks for the help.

[Gordie]

If the cable is frozen and not broken try soaking with WD40 or a similar product to try to free it up.  That should work.

[boatingbill]

Remove the cable and housing as a unit. Hang vertically with the knob at the bottom. Put a dozen or so drops in at the
top of a light oil like 3in1. Let it hang over night and see if oil is seeping out down by the knob. If not add a few more
drops of oil and wait. When oil is coming out the  bottom, the entire housing is lubricated. The cable should now come
out freely. Remove it and check for any kinks. Remove any kinks in a vise. When I lived in Minnesota we fought rust in
so many ways it was crazy.

[MarkH]

My fresh air vent cable is frozen. I would like to retain the original knob and bezel while putting on a replacement cable. The question is has anyone successfully removed the knob from the inner cable? And how does it then get reattached - crimped, welded, ...
Thanks for the help.

I've replaced my overdrive cable housing & core wire. The flexible cable housing is swaged into end of the bezel tube and also has one small spot weld. The end of the core wire is knurled and inserts into a hole in the end of the aluminum knob shaft, and the end of the shaft is swaged (crimped) down on the knurled wire. My replacement cable knob shaft was cross drilled and the core wire was flattened in that cross drilled hole to keep it from pulling back out of the end hole, no swaging. I removed that, re-drilled my original shaft end hole and also cross drilled, flattened the core wire, and swaged it. I swaged the bezel tube on the new housing with a bolt cutter type swager and clamped it with a split bushing for good measure. Replacement cable Oregon 60-100

I also bought cable to rebuild the choke cable in a similar manner although that was months ago and I think I stopped with the new housing and may still have my old core wire on the knob shaft. I won't finish that till I see what's going on with the dual carb head. The choke cable is smaller than OD cable so a simple end swage will have the be the way to refasten the core wire. Choke cable is Oregon 60-122

Also, after I did the OD cable I found that Harbor Freight makes a much better swaging tool than what i had. I think it's called a hydraulic crimper, not expensive.

I've got some extra vent cables, possibly not frozen but the knob centers won't be pretty. I can check tomorrow.

Knobs are pressed onto knurls on the shafts and can be removed. Chromed knob centers are just a snap fit into the knobs and can be popped out with a flat face punch from the back through the shaft hole with the sides of the knob face supported. I needed a couple centers re-chromed. The Chrome Shop at Rock Island IL did them at $20 each

 

[vettelang]

Thanks for the replies. I have been soaking it in kroil with no luck, I will continue - and then apply Mark's solutions.

[MarkH]

Started out to the shop but turned right around only 2 steps from the back door. Today's freezing mist on top of last nights freezing rain is like walking on oiled glass. I'll update as soon as I can get to the shop without busting my *ss.

[MarkH]

Here's some photos of the choke & overdrive cable replacements. The choke still has the original core wire attached to the knob shaft. Red color on the wire is a very thin copper electro plate, also on all the other cables. Something not found on new cables.

Overdrive cable was a complete replacement and the Oregon number quoted above was the only cable I found with the correct diameter housing. Lots of close, but sub sized cables around (chinese?). Original core wire was 80 thousandths, replacement was slightly over 70, can't remember the exact spec. Replacement generic OD cables all used the sub size cable (metric?) with a 70 thousandths core

I bought a cheap swager on Amazon, basically bolt cutters with a series of notches in the jaws. Did not make pretty swages........ I got exactly what I paid for. The one I found later at Harbor Freight has much better reviews.

I was going to cap one end of a plastic electric conduit the length of my OD cable, slide the cable in and fill it with Evapo-Rust to de-rust but decided to go for new cables.