Moto Guzzi V700, V7 Special, Ambassador, 850 GT, 850 GT California, Eldorado, and 850 California Police models
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Thanks to Rich Arimoto who posted this information on the old Yahoo! Loopframe_Guzzi news group (which has now moved to Groups.io). In Rich's own words:
This qualifies as a cheap fix, but I found that you can drill out the detached barrel of the broken cable, then put it back in place and solder the free end of the cable to a cut-down refill from a Parker ink pen (the refill is about 2 mm on the skinny side then tapers to about 4 mm -- cut it down so that it is about 5 mm long). Lasts about as long as the stocker, maybe longer. Silver solder is better. I'll take some pics the next time to do one.
Not denying that I can be cheap, there were two other reasons for figuring out a way to repair a control cable. I had been out on a trip and a cable that was only a couple of months old failed (I didn't carry a spare cable on that trip since the one on the bike was so new). The one that broke was one of the ones that has the cable crimped to the barrel as shown in Pic 1 below. Being generally annoyed and not wanting to buy a new cable only to have this happen again was my first motivation. The second reason for doing the repair in my shop was that I didn't want to wait 3-5 days for a new cable to be shipped and delivered; downtime can be a pita.
The worst part of this is getting residual ink out of the stub. I use carb cleaner -- wear gloves!
A broken cable.
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
The refill.
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
First cut on the pen refill.
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
Second cut on the pen refill.
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
Cable inserted in ferrule (is that what it is called?), ready for solder.
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
A completed cable end (pen refill stub soldered onto inner cable).
Photo courtesy of Rich Arimoto.
Here's a pic of a cheap butane torch that works great for soldering. You can get one of these for $5 to $10 at Harbor Freight. Good for pyromaniacs.
