1971 Volvo 164

Since I bought this car I’ve had issues with the choke cable.  The entire mechanism would move when I pulled the choke – thus it wouldn’t actually raise the choke on the rear carb.  It was just pulling the whole cable back and forth in the hole in the firewall.  This week I decided to tackle it once and for all and found that replacing it wasn’t a big deal at all.  On mine, the cable itself was fine – it was just the sheath that the cable slides through that had problems.  The sheath is clipped on both ends – underneath the dash and then on the other end at the carb.  The clip on the carb was fine but the one under the dash was bad.  Rather, the clip was fine but the sheath had frayed and the plastic just wasn’t holding it in one place anymore.  I took the cable and sheath out of the car by looking up under the dash and finding where it clips to the choke knob.

Click the photo for a larger version.  As you can see the cable itself hooks around a little post and about 3 inches to the right of that is the clip that secures the sheath to the assembly.  This clip comes off with a phillips head screwdriver and aside from the rather uncomfortable angle you have to reach up under the dash it’s not a big deal to remove.  You’ll probably also notice on mine that the black plastic surrounding the sheath has broken and separated.  See how there’s no black plastic where the phillips head clip is?  That’s why my choke cable was moving all over the place.

I went to Napa and bought a new choke cable for $10.  I got a 6′ cable because I wasn’t sure how long I’d need and figured I would be safe.   I pulled the choke cable out of the new one since I just needed the sheath itself.  The new cable had a sheath that wasn’t covered in plastic but it was the same size and my Volvo cable fit just fine inside it.  I did have to trim the new sheath to get it to be the right length and this took some trial and error.  I didn’t measure it when I finished (sorry!) but I’m guessing it was probably about 5′.

Unfortunately (like an idiot) I dropped the clip that holds the choke cable sheath to the carb.  It fell to the ground and I couldn’t find it.  So right now it’s being held on with a set of vice grips until I can stop by the hardware store and pick up a screw clamp or something.  Nice and shiny!

The other end (under the dash) clipped on nicely and after adding some silicon spray to the inside of the sheath it’s really smooth and doesn’t move around!  In the end I found it was a lot easier to just replace the choke cable sheath and not the whole cable.  If your cable is in good shape and you have issues with it moving around like I did just go for this $10 fix.  Hopefully it lasts another 40 years!

Here’s what the frayed end of my old cable looked like:

Now I can control the choke without having to open the damn hood and hold the sheath with my hand while I adjust it.  That was such a pain in the ass (as well as embarrassing).  It’s never cool to have to routinely open the hood of your car in order to get it started.