Hand Throttle Hookup?

[Tedredamphi]

:032:Could anybody tell me how/where the hand throttle cable hooks into the accelerator cable/linkage? A picture would be even better.
Thanks,
Ted
mattted@swbell.net

 

[Midwest Amphicar]

There are two styles one early one very late. The very late style has a unique triangle connected to gas pedal linkage. Unfortunately Hugh Gordon says that he is out of these. I did not keep one for a pattern:012:. The new part is direct bolt in and changes the geometry so hand throttle works easily from dash. If any one has one I could borrow, please let Me know. This would be a great CLUB project - year end gift? I will see about taking a pic today.

 

[CapnJohn]

Here are the 2 styles....

 

[Tedredamphi]

John,
Is that arm that the cable is fastened through actually part of or welded to the triangular linkage arm? Or is it somehow bolted to it? If you could pop off the bottom of that blue spring it would be easy to see the set-up. Might just try to modify my old style. Thanks for the pics.
Ted

 

[CapnJohn]

John,
Is that arm that the cable is fastened through actually part of or welded to the triangular linkage arm? Or is it somehow bolted to it? If you could pop off the bottom of that blue spring it would be easy to see the set-up. Might just try to modify my old style. Thanks for the pics. Ted

That is part of the cast piece. I do not have access to that car any longer or I could get a better detail shot.
The early system works fine, you just need to set the throttle with foot pedal, then pull out and lock the hand throttle. The late system had the mechanical advantage to just pull the hand throttle to set the pedal.

 

[jfriese]

Here is a some photos of the late style linkage thing.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

 

[jfriese]

Hello Again,

Here are a couple more photos of the late style linkage and I'm also including a couple of photos of an extension piece that can be added to the old style hand throttle linkage that extends the leverage a bit and makes even the old system work better. Better, but no where near as good as the late style. Both changes allows the hand throttle to adjust the speed without using your foot to set the throttle. I like this because it allows me to sit on the seat back and fully control the speed of the engine without jumping up and down. The late system works even better because it greatly increases the leverage to the hand throttle so the handle moves more and requires less force to hold a setting.

John Friese

 

[EricM]

Great detail in that photo John. I was able to get a read on most of
your fingerprints but I'm missing the thumb.

I want a cpmplete set .. just in case.

Eric

On Apr 10, 2008, at 4:37 PM, jfriese wrote:

> Here are a few photos of the late style linkage thing.
>
> John Friese
> 67 White
> 67 Red
>
> [[/IMG]
>
>

 

[PeterP]

Awesome. That looks pretty straightforward. Could probably go to BigBlueSaw and have a couple made up, provided you could bend the curved part yourself...

 

[jfriese]

Eric,

I didn't know you cared so much.

Peter,

The material is 5 mm thick, which is pretty though to bend that way but it is that thick simply to allow for the clevis thickness and not much force is actually needed to make it work. Perhaps an extension piece could be welded to the old style unit which adds the arm to it. Be careful though not to allow such a piece to get in the way of the arms that are attached to the triangle thing.

If someone wants to do the simpler but somewhat less effective extension to the old style attaching point, I think I had the machine shop do an extra one of those stainless steel extensions (shown on the Red car photo) and I would sell it for say $25, including attaching hardware and shipping.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

Cell: 805-570-4778 (after 12 PM, West coast time)

 

[Tedredamphi]

Where on the toeboard is the late style hand throttle cable housing clamped? Looks like it should be a couple of inches to the left of where the old style is clamped. I'm going to convert my old style hand throttle.
Thanks,
Ted

 

[Tedredamphi]

John,
I'm building a late model hand throttle plate to replace my old style. Could you tell me where the new style cable housing clamps on behind the foot board? Must be different than old style because cable runs on different sides of linkage.
Thanks,
Ted Matthews
----- Original Message -----
From: CapnJohn
To: mattted@swbell.net
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 6:12 PM
Subject: RE: [General Amphicar Discussion-t-19927] Re: Hand Throttle Hookup?


Here are the 2 styles....

Attached to this message is hand throttle early style.jpg

Attached to this message is hand throttle-late style.jpg

 

[CapnJohn]

John,
I'm building a late model hand throttle plate to replace my old style. Could you tell me where the new style cable housing clamps on behind the foot board? Must be different than old style because cable runs on different sides of linkage.Thanks, Ted Matthews

It should use the same clamp and (2) 8mm bolts on the front side of the toeboard as the earlier one kind of shows in the previous pic. I don't recall them being different, but it has been quite a few pain meds since then. If the orig location does not work, drill 2 holes and move it to the left a bit. The actual cable is longer on late VS early. I hope this was helpful some.

 

[Tedredamphi]

Thanks John - from your picture it does look like the cable is located more to the left than original.
Ted

 

[jfriese]

Ted,

Attached is a photo of the locations for the bowden cable placement for both the early and late style systems. The holes for the late style are about 2 1/4" to the left of the older system. I just put bolts in the old holes so they are filled up.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

 

[Tedredamphi]

Thanks for the pic John.
Ted

 

[jfriese]

Hello,

I came up with the adapter for the old style linkage about 2002 and had a dozen of them made up by a local machine shop. It works fine and I used it on one of my cars for years. Finally I was doing some nasty work on that car and switched that lower triangular plate to the late style and did the whole switchover. It's a pain. My adapters never sold very well and when they were gone I didn't have more made. Actually Larry Solheim bought the last one I had. That simple change makes the hand throttle work very well and makes the rather awful job of doing a conversion to the late style system "not worth the effort". Amphicar came up with their improvement very late in production so I don't think you see too many of them even in late cars. Gordon's had some of those late style triangle plates and I bought of few of them but they are now gone. I have photos of the late style plate and with a bit of metal work and welding the old style part could be converted with that additional arm. If there is enough interest in making the hand throttle actually work like a hand throttle without all the hassle of a full conversion to the late style I could probably make up some more of those stainless steel adapter things that I came up with years ago. It simply increases the leverage advantage to the hand unit as much as possible without hitting the underside of the floorboard. I think Larry would agree that it works quite well.

One more thing. I think Hugh told me that Amphicar used 5 different hand units in the cars. The most useful one, and the one I have in both my cars, will lock at any position of travel so that you can get very fine adjustments of speed. Most of the ones I've seen for years have course lock teeth that don't allow for fine adjustment. Just letting you know that when you get the big problem fixed down below you still might not be totally happy with the hand throttle operation, depending on how good your hand unit is. Still, I absolutely love having this feature and will always do whatever is necessary to keep them running correctly on my cars.

Even the jam type hand unit has teeth on it's shaft so don't let that fool you. What makes it a jam unit is the ability to turn the handle and "jam" the cable because there is some out of round part inside that does this. The only maintenance, aside from greasing the cable every few years is to not let kids get in the car and twist the handle past its jam point over and over. It will wear out the jam spot and then a tear down repair is required.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

 

[LSolheim]

Attached is a dimensioned photo of John's part before I installed it and one after install. John's part mounts at the hole where the hand cable originally attached. That small lever arm difference does a great job. I end up modifying an AutoZone compression locking handle to replace GI new version, which never worked for me.

 

[jfriese]

Say Larry,

That plate and all the screw hardware is stainless steel. Somehow it manages to look really dark in that left photo. I'm glad you did that drawing though because if I ever did one I haven't seen it in years. I don't exactly remember why I had all the edges rounded so much which makes it tough to measure. I think there is a template around somewhere. I think it's at the machine shop that cranked them out. I have a bag of stainless hardware sitting around because a couple of years ago I was going to get some more of them made up. Somehow my machine shop let the small job fall through the cracks and I only have the hardware. Perhaps I'll prod them a bit to see if they will make some up.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

 

[LSolheim]

Say Larry,

That plate and all the screw hardware is stainless steel. Somehow it manages to look really dark in that left photo. I'm glad you did that drawing though because if I ever did one I haven't seen it in years. I don't exactly remember why I had all the edges rounded so much which makes it tough to measure. I think there is a template around somewhere. I think it's at the machine shop that cranked them out. I have a bag of stainless hardware sitting around because a couple of years ago I was going to get some more of them made up. Somehow my machine shop let the small job fall through the cracks and I only have the hardware. Perhaps I'll prod them a bit to see if they will make some up.

John Friese
67 White
67 Red

Yep, it is SS. Thought I mentioned that, but must have been to Jim Footh. Possibly looks dark due to the reflection of the flash?