Like many others before me, my 40 had a choke cable that was in very bad shape and beyond repair. Of course like many before me, I went online to order a new one only to discover that Toyota had discontinued FJ-40 choke cables years ago.
What was I to do? There were plenty of aftermarket solutions, but frankly, they all looked like sh**, and did not have the period correct pull knob on the end.
So I set out to make my own.
I started by purchasing this cable on eBay. Item # 142173196682
Of course, it had a chincy pull head on it that looks the mould was crafted by a 6 year old.
And it certainly did not look like my original pull knob
First, start by removing your escussion/beauty ring from your old choke cable, as the new choke cable did not come with one. Mine was in pretty bad shape; it was pitted, scratched, and corroded pretty nicely.
Before I installed it, I decided to shine it up with my redneck lathe. I used 320 grit sand paper, and worked my way up to 2000 wet.
Forgot to mention: before you can install your beauty ring to the new choke cable, you have to remove the nut, and to remove the nut, you have to grind off just a tab bit of material off of the cable fitting on the end.
Next, with the help of my angle grinder, I ground off most of the head of the new choke cable until I made contact with the metal rod.
Then with some more careful cutting I removed the rest of the new plastic cable pull.
Next, I needed to remove the original pull knob without damaging it. I accomplished this by heating the rod with a torch until the adhesive/plastic got soft enough to remove the knob. Honestly, it took a lot more heat and time than I thought it would. Eventually I was able to pull it off without harming the knob whatsoever.
Then I mixed up my favorite epoxy and placed it on the rod of the new choke cable.
Then I simply pushed the knob down onto the epoxy coated rod until it was fully seated.
Finally I installed it into my dash.
Note: you will either have to modify the dash by opening the hole up a bit more (I would not reccomend this method), or you can use a file to grind a flat area down on the threads of the new choke cable, to allow it to fit inside of the dash (this is the method I chose to do).
Don't forget to connect the other end to the carburetor!
I need to choke my '78 40 on nearly every cold start and have been nursing my old choke cable in & out of the carb connection for years. I'm constantly on edge that the dang thing will fail and I'll be blowing through cans of ether like Hunter Thompson. This is despite the fact that I actually have a NOS choke cable stashed in an unmarked box in the very back of an absolutely jam-packed storage unit in a different town than the one I live in. It would take me a month of Sundays to unearth it.
I'm just going to piggy back on this one since it is senseless to start another thread. I like the option above though. Another option is to use the stock pull shaft and the housing and just replace the sheath and cable.
You can buy a crimper or just epoxy the new sheath on.
To remove the old cable out of the stock shaft you heat it up with a torch. It's soldered in. Then I use a dremel and clean the end out. Cut the cable and sheath to proper lengths solder cable into shaft then epoxy new sheath on.
