Intermeccanica Roadster D

Yup - you have maybe 3 shifts yet on those few strands left.  If its VW Pan based  then outer casing is fixed in the tunnel and just the cable gets replaced.  That looks like a custom shortened cable - not the standard cut 10" off and add a clamp DIY solution.  

You can get a new cable directly from Intermeccanica that will fit the car.  

Sierra Madre has a shortened clutch cable for Speedster replicas.  It is 89" long and costs $28.50.

$28.50 for a $5.00 part?

crhemi (Bill) posted:

$28.50 for a $5.00 part?

On sale for $3.96

Thanks everyone for the responses - i think i have enough info to tackle the project.

Silvano

I have used the "cable shortening kit", shown above, on my car in the past and didn't really like it all that much.  It worked OK, I guess, but being mildly OCD, whenever I looked up in there for some reason I saw this.....THING up there holding my clutch cable together and I never really trusted it.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and had some custom clutch cables made up at a sailboat rigging shop and I like that much better.  After buying a regular-length VW sedan cable and then having the rigging guy make it shorter with a new end swaged on, it probably cost around the $28.50 quoted above.

If you have an IM, I would call or email Henry and just get a correct-length cable for YOUR car and have piece of mind.  If you have a VS, JPS or CMC, then a VS cable should work (I think they're around $25 each, too).

Buy two - It's always great to have a spare.  I think I've given away two or three "spares" on Carlisle drives over the years.

"Buy two - It's always great to have a spare."

Wise words right there. Nothing worse than matching revs all the way home after it breaks because you didn't (for whatever reason) think a spare was necessary.

$28.00 is insane....The cheap route is to cut and overlap the shortened cable at the trans with 3 small U clamps it can't pull loose, costs $1.50 in addition to your $6 stock VW cable. 

A simple cable swedging tool can be made using bolt cutter grinding the cutting jaw to accept the threaded cable end to be crimped.

As a matter of interest, the length of the cable is around 76 inches which is a lot less than the standard VW cable. In the mean time, i cut a standard cable and used 3 u-clamps, intend to replace with a cable from IM (calling Henry this week).

Thanks all for the input.

Silvano

Henry's in Italy until the 24th.   He is still answering his emails, though.

Or write to intermeccanica@telus.net

Robert monitors that email. I'm sure he has other responsibilities. But among them, Robert handles parts sales.