Modern Vespa

Let it be said that you keep on learning things, no matter how many bikes you wrench on. I re-learned a lesson from a while ago that i must have forgotten, this past weekend.


A friend brought me his bone-stock '74 US-spec Primavera. It had never had a complete cable change on it...so he brought me one of those "universal cable sets" for a smallie. This one was Mercur brand. I used the whole cable-swapout method i detailed in a different thread, and for the most part it went ok. It did remind me of some details i want to share, though.

1) You may or may not know this, but stock, from the factory, they put a metal crimp on the two gear selector cables, tying them together. The two are crimped together up near the headset end. Why they did this, i have no fucking clue... because getting them out means pulling them carefully up through the headset area. If you try to get them out through the bottom you'll have a miserable time. This is about the 10th bike i've done with this stupid crimp thing. If you are using the double-length cable trick, this will ruin your day. Just an FYI that if your outers have a really waffle-pattern look about them, they are probably the original outers, and so your gear selector outers might be tied together.

2) I cannot stress this enough ... MAKE SURE YOUR OUTER CABLES ARE CUT PROPERLY TO LENGTH. These universal kits they are selling are a good 7-8" longer than they need to be, assuming that you're going to cut them to length. I basically ran all my outers ...hooked them up before cutting them to length, and it was terrible. The gear selectors barely shifted it into gear...and not cleanly. The clutch was very hard to pull,etc. Basically all that excess outer was causing a lot of undo friction, i assume.

When i undid all the cables, i took a dremel wheel to the outers ( after holding them up to the little fine-tuner things to measure them ), and hacked off the 7" or so of outer material ... being careful not to nick the inner... and then reattached. Man, it's like night and day. They suddenly felt slick and required no effort to shift or squeeze the clutch. It was a borderline unrideable bike beforehand, and felt brand new afterward. So... please please please if you run new cables make sure that you dremel off the excess outer.

3) I find that the cables you buy that have a plastic ( teflon, maybe? ) sheath inside of the outer, between the inner and the outer, are best. Check to make sure the cable sets you order are teflon lined. Those are quite nice and you don't have to worry about oiling them as much.

-Eric.

motorsport has a complete cable set for smalframes that is cut to length, has teflon lined housings, and has solder tinned ends.

Wow. that would have helped.

ahh,would have helped but would have negated the thread which is why I AM HERE.

i learn so much from people doing it the hard way and posting.

i had to snip a bit off my outers on both the p and smally and solder nipples on the ends of a couple throttle cables and i am sure they sell em some where, but i did'nt have them then.

eric,your post will suredly make for a few smoother clutch pulls.

Eric-

I was called by a neighbors friend to help install a new inner throttle cable on a smallie. Don't know why he asked me to help, as I told him I had no smallie experience. Before joining him, I found an article on the web, read up on the procedure and printed out a copy for him.

There's a second reason I am not sure why he asked for my assistance, since after going over the illustrated, printed info, he simply jumped in and started pulling and pushing at the cable ends and outer, refusing any assistance on my part. I just gaped as I watched him gorilla things.

Well, the net result is that he pulled the outer out from the guide in the headset, so there is no way to run the cable as things stand.

Thus, even though I do not plan to get further involved, for my own edification, does the headset have to come off to re-insert the outer in the guide? That's how it appears to me, and the instructions I found only address the inner and make no mention of not dislodging the outer. I guess the author assumed some finesse on the part of the person doing the job!

Thanks

Al

My constraints were that i really didn't want to remove the headset or disassemble anything in order to run the cables for this friend. The minimum time input possible...

i had to completely pull out the two crimped together gear selector cables, which meant i had to fish 2 new ones down through the bike without aid.

The first one went in without much trouble..maybe 5 minutes. The next one was a little harder and was getting stuck on the bridge piece, which is a reinforcement plate that runs across the center channel, right about where your brake pedal is.

So, what i did was chuck up one end in a drill, and spun it around lightly until it basically found it's way through the hole.

When running new outers manually, though, always go down from the speedo hole through the fork. You'll likely have a hang up right behind the horn, then again at the bridge piece, and then you're set. You'll have to pull the gas tank to push it through the little hole in the frame, but then you're done.

I think it took about 20 minutes total to run those 2 new outers.

i dropped my brake out of the frame as well as it was catching on that, a 74 smally

yeah...smallies and P-series are good in the regard that you have a few other access panels ( removable horncast, removable brake ) that allow you more opportunities to correct the orientation of the cables as you're running them.

All in all, though, removing and having to reattach these things makes for a much longer process.

if you leave one shifter cable adjusted, it is faster. leave one hooked up. remove one inner. replace the outer with eric's long cable method. then, the inner. then hook the inner up. THEN after the first inner is adjusted, demo the second and repeat.

Eric
Two questions come to mind after reading your helpful advice(they are not specific to a smallframe)

If the original casings are in good shape, could you just leave them in and replace the inner cable only?

If you are replacing the casings, and have to cut them to fit, how do you deal with the little metal cappings that are crimped onto the ends of the casing?(not sure if these are on a small frame cable kit, however they came with my largeframe kit)

1) yeah, you can just change the inner if the outer is in good shape.

2) The metal crimped on ends on outers... i grabbed mine with a pair of vice-grips, and just pulled ( AFTER i had cut the excess from the outer ). The plastic sheathing will break, the coiled-spring metal of the outer will start to unwind, and it will allow you to pull off the metal "cap".

Then i widened it with a pair of needle nose pliers, opening the end back up again ... replaced it on the cut-down outer, and then kinda give it a bit of a squeeze with a pair of pliers...nothing serious. It will sorta compress back down again once it goes into the fine-tuner that stops the cable outer.

Any advice on how to deal with the extra long speedo cable that comes in the kits-it seems to stick out about 3 inches more than it needs to?

ugh... yeah, that sucks. This bike i worked on had the same problem ..but i didn't cut the throttle cable down because i didn't want to deal with the whole throttle cable nipple.


There is a pinch bolt you can buy that's really, really tiny. It's meant to fit in the little throttle slide lever on Dellorto carbs.

Looks like this :




That will allow you to cut the throttle outer to size, trim the inner until it's 4" or so longer, and then thread it with this pinch bolt.

I have a full set of these on my Super. I couldn't believe the difference when I put them on compared to the old cables and outers. The cable actuation was just sooo smooth -- next to no effort required, and an easy, smooth return.

They felt like butter.

Thanks that's a helpful bit of info. I'm a little apprehensive to add because I don't want to say this is normal, but I ran a new teflon cable set and have been quite unhappy with them myself. Most if not all of the cables broke with in 6 months or so and yes they were greased. It may have been a bad batch or something.

I use bicycle cables from REI..less than 2 bucks a cable...they work perfect...been 4 months of riding everyday no problems

screw rei

i'm coming to sd this weekend 8)

did you evr google jim and mike muir f--ker

hahah..whatever they are the bomb and you know it...everything is expensive in that store except for their cables!

Come on down dude. You are more than welcome to hang out. There are some great rides through Rancho Santa Fe that I want to go on.

Yes I know who Mike Muir is! JEZ...SUICIDAL! What's up with his parents though?

I was hanging out with Russell of Exile Cycles yesterday at my friends wedding in Ventura...I asked him if he was ever going to build a Lammy chopper again and he just laughed..I think he still likes scooters

Seriously..come down and lets ride!

nothing 's up with his parents.

around these parts they get the big props for having a couple knuckle head boys.

when i was single they would invite me over for thanks giving.

mr. muir would wear a suicidal t-shirt, he says jim does'nt make any dogtown t's that he likes

paul cullin(pc) of z-boy fame died last week

Noway?! Not baby paul...dude that sucks

Alva's got his little shop here in Oceanside..pretty cool

(nsr)

yup, baby paul

shows your in the know lad

Yes VERY NSR

Been sk8n' since 86' I surf more than I skate though, but I still like to skate mini ramps and pools.

If ya come out my way we can skate this new pool with tiled coping..it's sick

You guys, aren't so much with the P.M.'s or email so much huh?

No.

no

gotcha! hahahahahahaha