Esprit S4 throttle cable replacement - Am I missing a trick?

[tomcattom]

While reassembling the engine following the fuel tank replacement on my car I noticed the end of the throttle cable looked a bit frayed. Upon disconnecting it from the throttle I was dismayed to see the barrel on the end seems to have snapped off and some bodge artist has fashioned a very shoddy repair on it. I have therefore ordered a replacement and in readiness for its arrival I tried to remove the old cable this evening but I've run into a problem.

The cable is disconnected at both ends and the little screw clamp behind the carpet in the drivers footwell area has been removed and the outer cable is moving freely, but I can't seem to get the inner cable through the metal tube on the clutch rest.

 

The bullet on the end of the cable seems to be a wider than the tube 😕

It doesn't appear as though the bullet on the end be just removed from what I can see. Now while I can simply cut the bullet off to remove the old cable it's got me wondering how they got the cable in there in the first place and more to the point how on earth am I going to get the replacement cable through there when that arrives? 😟

Would I be correct in assuming that's not an original cable end and the new should simply slide through the tube, or is there some trick to installing it that I haven't found documented yet? The picture of the replacement cable shows both ends of the cable pre-installed.

[jonwat]

12 minutes ago, tomcattom said:

The bullet on the end of the cable seems to be a wider than the tube 😕

 

So you pull it out through that end, I've not done it on an S4s but that's how I done it on my S3 

[tomcattom]

So I could remove it that way, but the new one will never go back in from the cabin end because the barrel on the engine end is even bigger than the bullet on the pedal end.

[tomcattom]

After doing a bit more searching with different terms it seems I'm not the first to have this problem.

I can only assume the bullet must have been put on the end of the cable after the clutch rest is installed at the factory.

Looks like I'll be cutting the end off the cable and reaming the clutch rest tube if the new cable won't slide through willingly.

 

[jonwat]

10 hours ago, tomcattom said:

Looks like I'll be cutting the end off the cable and reaming the clutch rest tube if the new cable won't slide through willingly.

Would be easier to cut a slot in the foot rest to slip the cable in & out of 

[tomcattom]

You'd need to cut a slot in the full length of the tube I would have thought.

Luckily it didn't come to that. Having got the foot rest out of the car it looks like it's made of three parts; a tube welded into a boss which is welded to the plate and it's just the last 10mm of that boss that needs opening up.

I ended up drilling it out from 5mm to 6mm and countersinking the opening to make sure there are no sharp edges that could damage the inner cable.

Cable fits through perfectly now 😃

[jonwat]

12 hours ago, tomcattom said:

I ended up drilling it out from 5mm to 6mm

Can't believe that Lotus crimped the nipple onto the cable after fitting into clutch foot rest, the cable would have come to Lotus with both nipples fitted 

[tomcattom]

Based on the experience of the GT3 in the other thread I referenced it seems plausible that it could have come from the factory like that. Either that or in both our cases someone came along later and replaced the throttle cable and crimped the end on after threading it through the footrest 😢 It definitely wasn't coming in/out with the size it was to start with.

There's no way of telling if the throttle cable I've just removed is the original or not. The parts list mentions some blue markings on RHD cables, but no evidence of that on mine, but if it is original it could easily have worn off after 25+ years on the car.