Hitchcocks Forum

Bonjour! So I have an issue in that I have replaced the throttle cable on my 2001 Bullet 500 and now find that is at max revs when it starts? I am not entirely sure the needle slide is hitting bottom, is this the most likely cause for this? Have I potentially ordered a cable just that bit too short? The cable adjuster is screwed right in and the idle screw isn't really doing anything right now. When I look into the micarb through the inlet, should the slide close off the hole entirely? As I've not really done too much to the bike other than put a new cable in place I'm a bit frustrated that this is an issue, would appreciate any advice or just some affirmation as I'm fairly practical but a newbie to Bullet mechanics. Many thanks.

Yes you know what your talking about,that carb slide has to come down and hit that idle screw too idle.You should be able to hear a click when it hits that screw.Also you should have a little freeplay/slack in the outer cable on idle/tickover.

Also, have you checked the little split collar that goes round the cable just before it enters the hand throttle. 1 If it's not in quite right then the cable will be too "tight". 2 If you remove it temporarily you might see better how much slack there is... then back to what jafa90 says? This may or may not solve it but are dead easy to check quickly. Also, is the cable being restricted where it comes out of the top of the carb, wrong angle due to hitting the underside of the tank. Mine did it and just needed a bit of fiddling.
Good luck, Chris

When you look through the inlet you should indeed see the bore of the carb filled with the slide. The cutaway (chamfered part of the slide at the back) will not be completely down but the front should be. Something is amiss. Try taking the slide out with cable attached and see how much movement there is while holding it alongside the carb. That should give you an idea.

Hi guys----- hello NORDICGLOOM,...when you first bought this cable did you check it's length against the old one BEFORE fitting ??---If you did and it was OK then it could be trapped somewhere--As a follow-on to CHRIS(STOCKPORT) you might try taking the throttle cable completely out of the twist grip (it's only two screws) so that there is NOTHING effecting that end of the cable...The carb.slide should now be resting on the throttle-stop under pressure from the spring... Pull the inner cable by a few mm's and let go---- you should hear a sharp "click" as the slide is stopped by the adjuster....If you do hear that then the cable length is wrong somewhere.. If you don't then the inner cable is restricted/trapped and needs to be investigated further OR the slide is partially seized and needs maintenance.....Also test for smooth operation with the handlebars on full lock, both L/H and R/H....

I go with Chris on checking the split ferule at the grip end. Also try running the cable not through the cassette but straight under the tank. At the carb end I found that the slide has developed a burr where the throttle stop screw enters the barrel of the carb and contacts the slide. It worked out in the end with a combination of all 3 of the above. Much happier when I changed to an Amal Monoblock though. Cheers TrtevorCH

Hi Nordic - when you re-assembled the slide back into the carb body (complete with your new cable attached) did you ensure that the needle entered through the main jet at the bottom of the carb body? It's possible to assemble the carb with the needle 'stuck' on the edge of the main jet. This will prevent the slide from moving down into the carb body and effectively hold the slide fully open - i.e. full throttle. That's what I think, that.

Hey all, I think this was just a really classic routing problem, I honestly thought it'd be far simpler so I'll just lift share for a couple days and play around with it till it's fine. I checked the lengths and they are the same which is more frustrating than anything else but the cable is indeed going into the carb at a fairly radical angle so it's all inter connected. When I took out the split collar the slide did indeed hit the bottom of the carb with a reassuring tock and the bike idled nicely hooked up without tension in the cable. But I'm waffling, many thanks for the advice. Any hints on throttle routing would be welcome. Hey ALANR!

Sounds like a short cable before and after,does the cable hang DOWN from the twistgrip? I can make mine stick by holding it towards the yoke.My spare i bought is longer.

Hello JAFFA 90--------- that's a good point !!We're all assuming that he original cable was indeed the correct one to start with..NORDICGLOOM, do you still have the bag the cable came in ?? What's the part No. on it ?? Who did you get it from ?? I recently bought one of our hosts GIVI frame kits for my 2005 Classic 500 only to find that it had been wrongly labelled (it was actually for the EFi model)----Hitchcocks were up to their usual A1 standards and changed it immediately....Might be worth a check ???