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Cables / sheath lube

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Lobo:
My daily drive is a split-screen Kombi: dear god, if ever drive-by-wire was needed this is it. The accelerator cable (& clutch) is a 4m long affair, wending it’s way down an aged 6mm ID steel tube, then through a bendy pipe to the jiggling engine. Typical life is 2 years, ie when the 1.5mm stainless cable begins to fray. It’s such an awful dirty job changing it that it gets done habitually versus risking a roadside failure…

So, I want to replace the worn steel / bendy tubes with a continuous nylon one, with no joins, ie accel pedal to carb arm. And here’s the question… should I be lubing the ss cable in any way? And if so, what oil / grease please?

Desperately hoping it can all be kept clean / dry!

McCabe-Thiele (Ted):
Do you know anyone who has used a Nylon tube with SS cable is it s known upgrade on VW websites?

I ask as firstly Nylon absorbs small amounts of water when it gets wet causing binding in some applications - I know this as Nylon bearings were used on tin openers in the late 1960's by a local firm - they were great during factory testing but when they went into production after a few washes in the sink even Charles Atlas could not turn the handle.
I would have thought a Pneumatic system might be better as used in the early Hillman Imp accelerator pedal  it was a great throttle action but the materials used in the bellows failed so they were replaced with a cable. Newer generation materials might be more effective in bellows design.


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http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-hillman-imp-pneumatic-throttle-foot.html

Matt_Harrington:
Might be worth contacting venhill.co.uk to see what they say - they could even make a custom one with teflon for you....

Orcade-Ian:
Lobo,
Surely there's some electronics geek on this forum who might help with a modern solution for your V Dub?
Model aeroplanes use servomotors which should be able to cope with moving the linkage on the carb.  A throttle potentiometer could be used to accurately measure how far the pedal is being pressed.  A model aircraft would then need radio control the marry the two pieces of info but yours can be hard wired, with some kind of electrickery in between.

Ian

K2-K6:
I've been using silicone oil (sometimes grease depending on application) for cables, particularly smooth and low friction with stainless wire. It doesn't ordinarily degrade or change to "clag" either, so long term consistent performance is reasonably assured.

I feel it's a good shift to move onto a complete sheathed cable end to end in this application, shouldn't be much friction on the predominantly straight run section anyway.

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