Session 44: Cable routing and throttle cables
Made decent progress last weekend and this past week by spending a few hours after work.
The radiator overflow hose nipple is a stubby guy but the hose slipped on and a new hose clamp replaced the OEM wimpy metal wire clips thingy. Probably overkill but better than taking the risk of a scalding.
Took the rubber heat deflector back off the bike for you know who and documented its design in CAD. Hope it helps him and anyone to DIY their own using a sheet of 1mm butyl rubber and an X-acto knife. Piece of cake. Getting comfortable popping carbs on and off.
Installed a replacement O-ring for the timing inspection cover. Nothing fancy just a buna rubber part. The Haynes manual recommended doing this as part of the valve re-shim procedure.
Lubed all cables (accel, decal, clutch, speedo) using a messy method that the Haynes manual recommended if you don't own a cable lube tool. In a nut shell: cut off the corner of a plastic bag, insert the cable housing and cable thru the cut hole and seal the bag to the sheath with tape. With the makeshift funnel wrapped around the cable fill the bag with a little oil, raise the bag and let gravity do the rest. Effective but slow and messy. Try as I might the oil finds a way to drip on the floor. The speedo cable was lubed by pulling it out from its sheath, wiping it clean and then lubing with motor oil.
Spent three hours Friday night fiddling with the clutch, speedo and throttle cables trying to figure how to best route them. The Haynes book and a VFR400 FSM are not very helpful for cable routing. I searched thru old photos I took when I removed the fairings but still failed to turn up anything definitive. So till and error time. After 10 minutes I was happy with the speedo and clutch. Both more obvious as they were recently disconnected and the speedo had its own bend wire holder. The accel and decel cable routings were more problematic as they came off long ago with the carbs, plus they had much longer paths with lots of options.
In the end the best answer I came up with was around the right fork tube, down between the headstock/frame and just above the lower radiator. The accel and decel cable sheathes then attach to a bracket that leaves very little room to tighten the lock nuts as its placement is on the side of the carbs and about 1" from the inside of the frame - an open end wrench doesn't have enough room to move (maybe only 3-5 degrees of rotation making it tough. The trick is to finger tighten as far possible saving the wrenches until the very very last bit.
After 20 minutes of futzing and patiently securing the cables I went to twist the throttle and .....crap....it sticks. :mstingray
Turned to the Haynes manual and carefully looked up the procedure and specs.:nerd Ooops, there is supposed to be 2-6mm of throttle freeplay. Dummy went for zero play :rolleyes. I loosened up the cable fittings to 5mm slack and Bingo! it was working like a throttle should - easy to turn and snappy. I wonder why Honda opted for two cables. I'd guess the carb return springs are enough to work with one cable. Whatever.
It was past midnight and I still had a baggy with leftover parts: an idle adjustment cable, compression coil spring, small washer, big washer, a bracket, choke cable and 3 bolts. Of course I didn’t remember where everything went so I called it a night. Saturday I’d revisit with a clear mind.
I hope you recently lost it or at least drained the carbs. You saw my tank's s*** show. Did you try to pick the lock? Gotta ask, ya got the code for the key so you can get one cut?
