{"id":1005,"date":"2009-12-16T13:17:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T18:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2014-03-15T11:27:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T15:27:46","slug":"z-bender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/how-tos\/tips-and-tools\/2009\/12\/z-bender\/","title":{"rendered":"Z Bender"},"content":{"rendered":"

I used to use a couple needle nose pliers to make the z bends for throttle and choke cables.\u00a0 Eventually, I purchased a device made specifically for that task.\u00a0 While it doesn’t make as compact a bend as I like, I generally use it if I don’t want to take the time to remove the cables from the Cub Cadet.\u00a0 I’d thought I’d include a description here since it’s a process that’s pretty simple to duplicate.\u00a0 The bender looks like this:<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-1\"<\/a>
\nSince it’s not obvious from the picture, here’s two closeups of the ends.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-3-end<\/a>\"z-bender-2-end<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

To use the bender, insert the throttle wire in the hole in the end.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-4-with<\/a>After the wire is inserted in the hole, it is bent forward (or downward depending on your perspective).<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-5-first<\/a>
\nAfter the bend, the wire is rotated around until it is seated in the slot in the tool.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-6-first<\/a>
\nThe wire is then bent forward.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-7-second<\/a>
\nThe wire can then be rotated out of the slot and removed from the bender.\u00a0 The finished product looks like:<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-8-finished<\/a>
\nNotice in the above photo that the resulted z bend is not very compact and the bends are more rounded then I like.\u00a0 The device is easy to use and it’s pretty fail safe, but although it’s not obvious in the picture, it’s a fairly “wide” z bend.<\/p>\n

If I have the cable removed from the tractor, I came up with another method that I prefer.\u00a0 I made a fixture by drilling a through hole (5\/64″) in the side of a\u00a0 1\/2″ piece of steel from the scrap pile.\u00a0 Begin by placing the wire in a vice.\u00a0 The wire should be about a 1\/4″ into the vice.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-9-wire<\/a>
\nUsing a hammer, make a bend.\u00a0 The hammer assures a sharp 90 degree bend.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-10-first<\/a>
\nRemove the wire from the vice and stick the 1\/4″ length in the fixture.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-11-wire<\/a>
\nPlace the wire and fixture in the vice.\u00a0 The depth that you place it will determine the width of the z-bend.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-12-fixture<\/a>
\nAgain, using a hammer bend the wire forward.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-13-second<\/a>
\nRemove the wire and fixture from the vice and you have a z-bend.<\/p>\n

\"z-bender-14-finished<\/a>
\nIt’s not obvious from the picture, but the z-bend created has much sharper corners and is much narrower.<\/p>\n

Again, I hope you find this article useful.\u00a0 I’m sure with a little creativity someone could come up with an even better and simpler bender.\u00a0 If you do, drop me an email.\u00a0 I’d be glad to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to use a couple needle nose pliers to make the z bends for throttle and choke cables.\u00a0 Eventually, I purchased a device made specifically for that task.\u00a0 While it doesn’t make as compact a bend as I like, I generally use it if I don’t want to take the time to remove the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-and-tools"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lT6g-gd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cubcadetman.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}