The lower cables are shorter and a lot easier to route. It made sense to gain some disassembly and routing info on the easy ones first. The cables to the fly bridge are a lot longer and will definitely be more of a challenge.
The each steering station has four cables (port and starboard throttle and port and starboard transmission). Of the four at the lower helm, one, the port transmission cable, has always worked very smoothly and with little effort. We elected to leave that cable in place.
Disconnecting the cables from the control lever assemblies took a while since Silverton didn't leave any extra space, but we did get them disconnected.
This is the starboard control with the cover removed. The cable on the right is shown just after we disconnected it. It took two small open end wrenches to get the elastic stop nut off.
This is what the fittings on the end look like. They still make fittings like this but we have no idea if a new one will fit so we're holding onto the old ones.
Here's a better picture of what they look like.
Those cables are also clamped to arms that stick out of the back of the control assembly. They are held on by Allen-head machine screws and it is a tight fit to get the wrench in there.
These cables are routed down behind the helm and then under the floor all the way back to the engine space. We had no idea whether they were fastened somewhere or if we'd be able to simply pull them all out together. Just to make sure that we had a way to snake the new cables back in, we tied a length of clothesline to them to serve as a pilot line.
Before we could pull the cables out, we had to disconnect them from both carbs and the starboard transmission. It was cold laying behind the engines but we rigged some work lights and managed to open the clamps and disconnect the carb fittings. From the amount of persuasion required to get the cable disconnected from the starboard transmission, we have to think that these cables are original.
Here's the clamp that held one of the throttle cables in place.
And here's the connection at the Edlebrock carb. This fitting was designed by yours truly when we installed the new carbs.
The starboard throttle and transmission cables were straight shots right up to the lower helm. The port throttle cable was held in place by a dozen or so useless cable ties, all of which we had to cut out to free it up.
It was time to pull the cables out and to our delight and surprise, they came out with almost no effort. As we pulled them out, we could look into the cabin and see our clothesline paying out.
We had no idea how long these cables actually were. Our friends at the Silverton Owner's Club told us that the lengths were marked about four feet from one of the ends of each cable but we couldn't see the markings with the cables installed. We were going to replace them anyway so we took them home and measured them.
We know the pictures aren't very interesting but we took them so onto the old blog they go.
The blue tape on each cable is marked with the cable's function. We didn't know that two of the cables were the same length until we got them out.
Next, we went on a hunt for new cables.Several people at the Silverton Owner's Club had replaced their control cables and they recommended Teleflex TFXTREME cables. A search of the Teleflex website allowed us to figure out their part number system. CCX633XX, where "XX" is the cable length. We let Google do the searching on those part numbers and came up with lots of places that carry (or say they carry) the two Teleflex cables we needed.
We started checking all of the website for price. A couple of websites listed these cable for as much as $80. After eliminating the obvious rip-off sites, we went through the stupid drill of filling out all the ordering forms on three of the lowest priced websites just so we could find out what the shipping charges were going to be. (Note to readers who order on the web: Those websites operate that way because they collect, and ultimately sell, the info they gather from you, even if you end up not confirming an order.)
We ultimately ordered the cables from marinepartssource.com. Their prices were about $5 less than the others. We spent $110 for the two 18 ft. cables and the one 21 ft. cable and there were no shipping charges. The time spent searching was well worth it.
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