I went out last Monday to get on ole
Dixie to ride her down to the base, and as I tried to slide the choke
lever over for start up, it broke free. I had to go by the dealer
on the way to the base, so I stopped in and , luckily, he had one in
stock. I bought it and brought it home with the idea of changing it
over the weekend. I looked up the procedure in the service manual,
and frankly, it wasn't very helpful. I did a search here on the
forum, and again, not much help. (Fred had mentioned that he
replaced his, but there wasn't a write up that I could find.) I
decided to just dive into it and figure it out on the way.
Yesterday morning, I dove in. As an after-thought, I decided to
write-up a 'how to' for future use, if anyone is interested. Sorry
that I didn't do pictures as I went along. Like I said, this write-up is an afterthought.
For those who
haven't done it, its not that bad of a job. It took me a couple of
hours, because I had to figure out what needed to be removed so that
I could see the 'snaking' of the cable ends through the area behind
the goose-neck (and quite frankly, how to attach the ends at the
carburetor). Once you have the seat and fuel tank removed, remove
the right-side steering side cover. Then, remove the crankcase
breather storage tank bolt and twist it out of the way (No need to
disconnect the hoses/tubes.) Next, disconnect the both ends of the
connector tube (like on the air cleaner on your car) and remove it.
Now, disconnect the right side sub-air cleaner tube and the band
holding the left tube to the frame on the left side. Swing the
sub-air cleaner out of the way. You now have access to everything
that you need make the replacement.
Loosen the choke cable retaining nut. To make things easier, take a pair of dikes and cut the old cable about three inches from the turn signal assembly and spin the cable counterclockwise unscrewing it from the assembly. On the turn signal switch assembly, remove the two bolts and open up two halves to gain access to the choke cable end. (Mine had broken about ¼ inch from the end.) Separate the two halves, remove the choke thumb slider, remove the end of the old cable. Screw the new cable end into the assembly, replace the thumb slider connecting the new cable end, and place the two halves back on the handlebar and reassemble with the two screws. Make sure that the thumb lever is set to the choke “OFF” position.
Feed the new cable along side the old cable around the goose neck and let it hang on the right side of the vehicle. WARNING! (And this is the part that played with my head.....the two ends of the new choke cable don't look anything like the the ends of the old choke cable at this point. The ends of the old cable must be separated from the attachment pieces and replaced with the new ends!) Facing outboard and towards the rear of both carburetors is where the cable ends attach to the carbs. They are going through a 90 degree metal tube covered with a rubber casing. The cables then go into the carbs through a plastic nut. Unscrew the nut and simply pull the cable out of the carb. The cable will be going through a spring and attached to a keeper. Remove the keeper, spring, nut, metal tube, rubber cover, and set them down. Do this to the other cable end. You're now ready to simply observe how the old cable ends snake their way into place. Once you see how the new cable needs to go back in, remove the old cable and snake the new cable ends back in the same way the old ones came out. Side the metal tube, rubber cover, plastic nut, spring, and attach keeper to one of the cable ends. Insert it into carb and tighten. Repeat on other carb, and viola! Replace the sub-air cleaner, band, connector tube, crankcase breather storage tank,side cover, fuel tank, and seat.
Go riding!
