Supposed to have 2 throttle cables?

I have a 1976 kz900 with a 1000 engine. I noticed there is only one throttle cable but the manual says there should be two. The engine is from a 1977. Did this engine not have 2 throttle cables? Why would someone remove the second one.

one push and one pull (for safety or backup i would assume) in a pinch i have taken one off when the other one broke, used it on the other side and drove it this way for quite a while.

arobsum wrote:

one push and one pull (for safety or backup i would assume) in a pinch i have taken one off when the other one broke, used it on the other side and drove it this way for quite a while.

What he said.

Having that second cable has saved me on the side of the road a long way from the barn a couple of times as well.

The earlier Z/KZ vintage throttle setups seem to be tough on cables - I've snapped 4 out on the street over the years to memory - aside from the ones I've spotted in the nick of time. I've lubed, taken down hard edges on the twist-pulley with a dremel, all that stuff, and the cables still fray over time. Good idea to have that second cable and make a visual inspection part of the yearly inspection.

Sad to say, but throttle cables are waiting to go off on these birds...

Interesting, I've never had to replace a throttle cable in all these years, but I have had a lot of trouble with the push/pull setup using low bars. For some reason with low bars on both the KZ1000 and KZ650 there was no way in the world to adjust the cables so they didn't cause the throttle to stick, so I opted to remove the push cable to regain non-sticky throttle operation. Maybe this is why you only have the one cable? With stock bars, never a problem so now I'm back to dual cables with stock bars.

yeah ive broken a lot of the pull cables and swapped the push cable to pull position.i normally dont run all the extra crap on my handlebars so i just use the single cable dirtbike throttles without all the crap on them.ive snapped a lot of clutch cables over the years also;)

i've went thru a couple clutch cables also...must be a weak point on these bikes.

I have drag bars (0 rise and barely any pullback) and still have what appear to be the original dual cables on my bike and haven't had one break or any probs with my throttle sticking at all.
I guess-timate I've got around 40K with this setup, and frequently inspect/lube the inner cables and barrel ends. Perhaps your cables were routed to where it caused them to bind, Ron?

I ahve nevr broke either cables, lots of clutch, oddly enough I am replacing both of them on the 1000

you guys just arent trying hard enough!!!!! i suppose lubing the cables does help,i should try that some time! i used to eat a lot of tach cables also,but they are a lot easier to oil than throttle cables;)

i'v gone thru 3 clutch cables in 3,200 miles, one plastic throttle grip, and when replacing that i noticed my throttle cable was frayed but i drove it anyways, i however have a new cable waiting to go on.

wireman wrote:

you guys just arent trying hard enough!!!!! i suppose lubing the cables does help,i should try that some time! i used to eat a lot of tach cables also,but they are a lot easier to oil than throttle cables;)

its been the speedo with me, for some reason my bike has went thru 2 so far.

27 years and 49,000 miles and I'm still on original throttle cables (have never lubed them). Went thru 2 tach cables and one spedo. Clutch was ok but changed it just for the hell of it.