Choke Cable

[bmg]

Need to know how long a choke cable should be for a 70 chevy, 650 holly carb. I have a 3/8 hole just below the oil pressure gage on under rail. Any suggestions on where and what to buy to get this working? Gettin a lil cold here in Alaska to sit in my truck and keep it idle'ing

[Terry S]

I went to auto zone and got a generic choke cable from their "help" section. It's the kind that has a center wire wrapped in a metal spiral sleeve. You can route it however you want, just make sure that there aren't any sharp bends or the wire won't be able to slide inside the sleeve. Once it's routed and you've decided how much excess to cut off, pull the knob out about 3 inches or so and then cut thru the whole thing with a hacksaw, dremmel, dikes, or whatever. Push the knob back in and the center wire should now be sticking out an equivalent 3 inches. hook it up to the carb, trim any remaining excess, ang get back in the house before you freeze to death.

Caution! don't forget to pull the knob out before you cut everything off or you'll be making another trip to the parts store (don't ask me how I know...it happened to a friend of mine, I swear!).

when I did this, I used the same bracket (I think) you're talking about; under the edge of the dash, located approximately below the oil pressure guage. You can't see the knob at all from the seated position. I routed the cable thru the firewall by way of one of the grommets that the windshield washer tubes or vacuum tubes went thru. I cant remember which it was now, but it's a grommet up high on the firewall, just a little to the drivers side of centerline. I can't remember how long the thing ended up being, and I'm too lazy to walk out to the truck and check, but I'm guessing that it wasn't over 3 feet.

Total cost was about 8 bucks.

f you can't get a cable by itself, you can also go the slightly pricier route of buying one of those automatic choke to manual choke conversion kits. I've seen them (also in the "help" section) for about 10-12 bucks. then just throw away everything in the kit except the cable.

By the way, does anyone know what that little bracket under the oil pressure guage was originally for? Like I said, an aftermarket choke fits like it was made for it, but my parts truck has a choke cable up on the instrument panel and it has that bracket as well. Was it just a different location for the factory choke cable or what?

[Fast68Chevy]

same cable is in this 81 out here, cheap but it works

[bmg]

Yes i got one of them cables from the help section. It will pull the choke open but will not push it closed (or whichever way it goes). It just binds up so not sure what to do. Guess i break down and buy my new card this week, the springs on the choke are all corredoed & rusted. Just another reason for me to get my new card now holley truck avenger is what i plan on getting, little to no adjustments.

[Fast68Chevy]

either has a sharp bend or kink along it somewhere or the housing is not clamped at near enough ot end of the housing(near carb)

check it out at the carb while you have someone pull and push cable from inside cab

good luck