I have had 2 cables break on me far from home. Easy to repair with common hardware store parts for temporary travel. It is what I really love about the vanagon. Easy to access any part that needs a repair. 

SeanG 

> On Jun 11, 2019, at 11:16 AM, Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Accelerator cables have a hard life on the automatic. The cable attaches to
> the kickdown lever on the tranny and has a lot of pulling to do for both the
> kickdown and throttle.  At 160k miles my son's 87 finally broke Sunday. He
> was returning from a 300 mile trip and it broke 3 miles from me and my home
> shop, His first "ride of shame" since purchase 5 years ago. He was able to
> coast off the very busy road to a safe parking place. These vans have good
> "carma".  The cable is $35 with shipping from our vendors, and takes about
> an hour to replace the first time, mostly due to tight space around the
> tranny.
> 
> 
> 
> The cable wears at the point where it exits a protective tube and rubs on
> the metal end fitting there.  Lube your new cable there  (under the flimsy
> protective bellows)  before installing and be sure to check that you have
> full throttle when the pedal is  floored and that the tranny kicks down when
> floored while driving. I recommend doing this job every 100k now.  Be
> careful not to damage the bellows when you  install it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Stuart