Hand Throttle
About two years ago I broke the clip on the stock hand throttle when I was removing it. I have since done without it, but I have missed its functionality for idling up for cold starts and off road. For awhile I have tossed around the idea of moving the hand throttle to the shifter which would be a little more ergonomic and free up another hole in the dash, something I never seem to have enough of.
I am aware there are kits available for this, but since the pedal assembly is already set up for one, I figured it would make for an easy home-brew project. Here's what I ended up with...
Parts used:
- (x1) Rear (more indexes than the front) Bicycle gear shifter and control cable
- (x1) Bicycle control cable casing- About 33" long, you can buy it by the foot from any bike shop
- (x1) Casing end cap - these just slide over the end the casing for better finish, also found at a bike shop
- (x2) M5 nuts
- (x1) crimp-on end stop (I used a non-insulated electrical butt connector)
- (x1) plastic sheet metal clip - The square kind that you pop into a hole to accept a screw. I got one at my local body shop for free, it's just a matter of finding one that fits into the pedal.
- (x1) Spacer bushing - for mounting the bike shifter to the cruiser's shifter lever.
- Zipties
Assembly:
I started with the cable casing and popped the end cap on one end. On the other end I threaded on the two M5 nuts. This was a little tricky because it was a tight fit, which is good since I wanted them to bite into plastic casing. I used a razor blade to taper the casing just a little at the very end so the nuts would thread on straight, and the slowly threaded on the nuts one at a time with a pair of pliers. I "cut" thread with the nuts about 3/4" up the casing. These nuts are used to secure the casing by sandwiching the bracket in front of the pedal and for adjusting the final tension of the cable.
I already had a bike shifter and it's actually a pretty nice "rapid-fire" unit made by Sram with a ratcheting mechanism which is good because it locks up in "gear" to resist the pedal force. It already had a control cable in good shape, but these can be bought new at a bike shop as well. I slide the casing on the the cable with the end cap on the shifter side. Then I slid the casing into the bracket in front of the pedal, allowing the nuts to sandwich the bracket. With the shifter in the floor board, I made sure the casing was fully seated against the shifter and then measured how long the cable needed to be to go through the pedal with enough room to crimp on the end stop. I pulled the cable back out, cut the cable, slid on the plastic clip and crimped on the end stop. I put it back back in once again to see how close I came, and made any adjustments by moving the nuts up and down the casing until I was satisfied. Here's what the pedal end of the assembly looks like:
Mounting:
Standard handle bars are 7/8" in diameter, the diameter of the cruiser's shifter lever, is not, at least not where I wanted to mount the hand throttle. To make the spacer bushing, I used a small chuck of 7/8" Diameter aluminum round stock about 3/4"-7/8" in length that I got from my local metal supplier.
The shifter lever is tapered so I need two diameters. I measured the shifter lever about where I wanted the top of the throttle to mount, and about where the bottom would be. It was a about 9/16" at the top and not quite 5/8" on the bottom, so i started with a 1/2" drill bit, drilling all the way through, and worked my way up in size until it slid down the lever to where I wanted the top to be. Then I drilled about half way through the bushing with increasing size bits for the bottom diameter until it seated nicely about where I wanted it to be. Then I just tapped it in place with a hammer for a "press fit," slid on the hand throttle assembly and cinched it down. I routed the cable down the lever, under the heater ducts and up to the bracket securing it with zipties along the way. Then I secured the casing, slid the cable into the pedal slot, and popped in the clip. Done!
I am VERY happy with the way it turned out. So far it works perfectly. I can ratchet the rpms up to about 2200rpm using my index finger, and ratchet back down with my thumb...
Up...
Down...
would have it been easier to just replace the OE hand throttle? Yes, but doing it this way gave me a little more functionality, and a whole lot more satisfaction.
