I went for a brief ride yesterday since the temps got near 50 degrees and had an unfortunate incident that might be of general interest.  While going about 40 MPH and about 2 miles from home, my Vision suddenly went to wide open throttle on its own.  Not knowing what had happened, my instincts were still good and I had quickly pulled the clutch to avoid colliding with the car in front of me.  However, the engine was screaming at over 5500 RPM and I had to use the fuel cutoff switch to regain control, as I got off the road with a very narrow shoulder.  After getting my breath and heart rate back, I tried a re-start and the engine immediately went to full throttle again.  At first, I thought it might be a problem with the newly installed fuel controller from the recent cam upgrade.  However, this was not the case - the throttle cable nut had backed off and was dangling on the cable.  I spoke with KevinX who said that he had seen a few other incidents like this recently.  Kevin suggested applying some lock tite to the nut.  I assume the nut is backing off due to vibration, though my Vision runs fine - no excess vibration noted over 9000 miles.  

I am attaching a couple of photos of the area behind the right cheese wedge where the cable is located.  The photos are the same view, just a bit closer and with a red arrow to indicate which nut (the rearward one) backed off.  Since Kevin has seen this on other Visions, I thought some may want to know about this and possibly check their bikes for loose connections.  No, I won't say check the bike for 'loose nuts', knowing what the comments will be    Hope this is of some use/interest.

Victory knows about this issue.  Mine jammed open the day I rode my bike home the day I took delivery in April '08.  It scared the shit out of me.  I was only 15 miles from the dealer.  Being a dumbass, I rode it home.  When it jammed, I blipped open the throttle and it then would return.  The dealer didn't believe me when I told him; I was screwing around with the cruise control the first time it jammed and at the time blamed it on the cruise.

 The next day it jammed again.  This time it was at the curb in front of my house as I was returning home.  I'd shut the bike off to move my car so I could park the Vision in the garage.  When I restarted it, the throttle wouldn't close and it bounced off the rev limiter.  Actually, it won't be wide open in this case but even at 1/4 open throttle with the clutch disengaged the bike will rev limit.  This is when I finally had the presence of mind to troubleshoot the cause and fix it.

 I waited until the next time the Victory truck with the demo bikes visited the dealer and confronted the "engineer" point blank with the potential for stuck open throttle.  He told me that he'd never heard of it before and blamed the dealer.  I told him that this design has a safety factor of ONE (no redundancy) and is guaranteed to fail if the nut comes loose.  He told me that the nut on the front axle is also a single nut that can cause disaster if it comes loose.  This may be so but that nut is torqued much tighter and besides, you can see it.

 I debated turning the issue over to the NHTSA and hope for a recall.  I believe that all Victorys have this potential.  I elected not to loctite the nut as without washing with alcohol or using loctite primer, I wouldn't be certain that the loctite would hold; it doesn't work if there's oil on the threads for instance.  Instead, I used the end of a small tap to pric punch the thread near the end  so that even if the nut comes loose, it can't come off.  I also paint marked both nuts and the bracket so I can see if they loosen, I just check once in a while.

 I found it easy to tighten one nut against the other with a 10mm open end wrench and a 10mm ignition wrench.  My hands are too big to start the nut back on the threads and besides, the throttle really needs to be open so another pair of hands helps to get the nut started.  I held the throttle open and my son (with smaller hands) started the nut.

 The picture shows the throttle jammed open with the hex nut that came off the cable adjustment.  

Jammed open throttle.jpg (63KB - 3 downloads)

varyder - 2009-12-15 8:01 PM I'm glad both of you'n's didn't byte the dust. That's more serious than I thought. Two on the forum got it, I wonder how many others got hit that is not on the forum? Tink, tink, tink, are you listening Victory....? BTW WB, you're engine looks like mine...are you going for the dirt test also?

 Actually, the bike was only two days old when I took the picture.  The crummy photograph is my fault.  I was too close to the object with the camera and the flash screwed the picture up.

 I should add that the people that travel with the Victory demo truck are fine people, no doubt.  However (comma) they are in marketing roles.  When I told them the design has a safety factor of ONE it didn't ring any bells with them at all.  They told me the problem was caused by the dealer while he had my bike apart for customizing all the while telling me that he has superior mechanics working for him.  I was told that all assembly operations at spirit lake are checked twice.   I told them, "Uh huh Bubba, and I just paid cash for one of yer motorcycles and put a ton of add-ons into it and yer blaming yer dealer on a crummy design".  

 I was very contentious that day.  PISSED OFF from the response from Victory.  That was the day I met Travlin Man and was in such a crummy mood that I'm afraid I didn't make much of an impression with him. 

 It's all history now.  I think Victory owes me an apology but it appears they aren't planning on changing their cheap assed design.

 Merry Christmas.  <----   if that offends anyone off they can KMA