Gunnar Gasser cheap copy warning ........

[grouty]

I know this has been covered a year or two back, but I feel it needs covering again !
I had an issue at the weekend with a Gasser copy. These are the ones with the BLACK cover and does NOT have "Made in Sweden" cast into the body.
The plastic tangs on the throttle tube the hold the cable WILL break off sooner or later. Mine did on Sunday afternoon. Luckily the throttle was being closed at the time. It usually happens as you're opening it or WFO. It looks like it is caused by the tangs and plasic cover being moulded badly. It lets the throttle go past the "stop" when closing. This puts strain on the weak (read cheap crap) plastic. A small piece will eventually break off jamming the throttle.

I know this subject is close to Firko's heart too.

I contacted the ebay seller that I bought the unit from yesterday. Had an email back from him today genuinely concerned about the problem. This is good. But there are a great deal of people selling these who don't know how dangerous the are, or do, and don't care.

I must stress that the good ones have a grey plastic top cover, and "Made in Sweden" cast into the body.

[John Orchard]

Thanks for the heads-up

[jerry]

Just gone to the man cave to double check mine! J

[firko]

Here's a modified version of the post I placed on the Circa '74 forum. It might appear that I've become a bit obsessed by this subject but when what's happened to Grouty, myself many other racers happens to you, you'll understand why

 I reckon I've become the International consumer advocate for banning those cheap'n'nasty Chinese Gunnar Gasser copies. In my 24 odd years in the VMX scene I've seen many an "Oh Shit ! " situation caused by those throttles malfunctioning at the worst possible time.

The problem (amongst others) is in the plastic loop that holds the cable nipple snapping off, causing the nipple to turn and jam in the housing. This exciting phenonema usually (but not always) occurs when you're on full throttle, often with dire results. It'd happened to me a couple of times earlier with only "broken bike irritation" before the life changing accident that put me off work for six months with a shattered elbow,broken ribs, a ruptured sternum and a whole bunch of lesser injuries. I was practicing at Pacific Park aboard my methanol DT1 Yamaha, dicing with my mate on his modern when, tapped out in 4th gear the throttle jammed, causing me to hit the berm at the end of the straight on full noise, face planting at least 20 feet from the launch berm, a smidge before the cartwheeling bike came through, promptly landed on top of me and causing most of the physical damage.

If you're using a Chinese rip-off Gunnar Gasser it's not a matter of it maybe failing, it's a good bet that it most certainly will fail when you least expect it. All we can do is to try and get the message out there that the Chinese Gasser style throttles are dangerous shit and hope that punters get wise to it before they get hurt.

[IT490K1983]

Not good. A sign of the times that we are currently living in.