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So i thought I would check the plastic housing on my cables this afternoon.
I put the top in the service position, took off the clip and yanked out the plastic housing and drive cable on one side.
To my surprise, there was about 2 inches of drive cable showing beyond the plastic housing/ferrule.
I was a bit dumbfounded - I have a 99' box and the cables or transmissions have never been replaced, they are the older style.
I tried to put the drive cable back in the hole and but it wouldn't go far enough to clip the ferrule back in place, there was too much metal sticking out. Now i was really confused. I started wiggling and pulling the wire a bit while holding onto the plastic housing, I pulled out about a foot of the metal cable beyond the metal ferrule/plastic housing without any resistance!
Boy was i freaked. I started wiggling the wire while pushing it back into the plastic housing. It would only go so far and there was still about 2 inches of the cable sticking past the plastic housing. I kept trying to pull it out a bit and wiggling it while tyring to push it back. After several tries, the drive cable got reseated on the transmission end and went all the way back in so that there was only 3/4 of an inch showing. I tried to push it further in thinking i could get it to show only 1/4 of an inch, but i couldn't. I put the cable back, put the clip back on and tested the top - it still works fine.
Moral of the story? I don't know for sure, but I was expecting to see only a 1/4 of an inch sticking of cable out past the plastic housing. I guess i don't understand enough about how the top works exactly to explain what i experienced - my guess the drive cable on the tranmission side that is inserted into the worm gear loosen or was not tight (it's supposed to be). It shouldn't have just pulled out like that. I had to wiggle it so it lined back up and went back into the worm gear. When i first removed the cable to inspect it, it was almost like nothing was holding it on the other end. One thing, even for a 6 year old car, there wasn't any evidence that the plastic housing had any stretching.
Larez2
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