Scary Experience Today!!!

[BigWheel]

I've been working simply enough on cosmetics for Hot Rod the last couple of days. Today I was looking forward to getting home from church and taking him for a long drive with the windows down. About 1 1/2 miles from home, on a 6 lane highway, the throttle stuck open. I immediately had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the car in front of me and have the presence of mind to shut the engine down for fear of blowing the motor. I got to a parking lot where I popped the hood to check the throttle and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Started back up and seemed to be idling a little high but otherwise normal. Drove about two blocks and the same thing occured again. I babied him all the way home but not without a couple of tense moments. Checked under the hood again and found nothing strange. What on earth would cause the throttle to suddenly do this?

[bravekozak]

heim ends

If this is a carby, i'd invest in a couple of small heim ends. If it's a EFI, sorry, not sure.
Check if its the carpet under your accelerator pedal.

[BigWheel]

Sorry for the lack of info guys but I was a little shook when I got home. This is a '93 EFI with a 4 speed. I recently replaced the air intake tube and put on a new TB gasket but I've run the car since with no problems.

[mattswabb]

This happened down the street from me today. The 80+ year old man said the throttle stuck. You do know the gas is on the right and the brake is on the left?

Good thing you didn't panic and had time to shut it down it could have been worse.

[BigWheel]

Okay this is funny. I went back under the hood a few minutes ago and still couldn't find a problem. Since I just installed a console I took another look to see if maybe I had done something with the carpet. No problem there. Cranked Hot Rod again and immediately had to shut him off. This time I got down in the floor board (I'm 6'6" so this had to be a funny sight) and thought maybe the linkage had slipped. Nope. No problem there BUT saw the tail end of a string. Followed the string and it had wrapped around the back side of the peddle and was looped around the brake peddle. Whenever I would take my foot off the brake the string would tighten up. When I put my foot on the gas peddle the string would grab and hold the peddle down.

All this fear and trouble over a piece of string that I have no idea from where it came. Now just picture the biggest guy you've ever seen driving a festy, in traffic, fighting the throttle then picture the string. :p

[GenevaDirt]

glad you found the problem....but I was wondering why you have a 4 speed instead of a 5?

[Icedawg]

Glad you kept it together, and you found the string. I had the throttle stick wide open in my car last weekend. It was on a race track we had built on a local lake. I drove a full hot lap wondering why the brakes seemed to be so hard and so ineffective. It wasn't until the cool down lap I realized the throttle was stuck wide open! Enough slush had splashed up into the carburetor linkage that it jammed open. Funny difference; on the track you almost don't notice the throttle is stuck wide open and on the street you might end up in the neighbors house.

[BigWheel]

glad you found the problem....but I was wondering why you have a 4 speed instead of a 5?

The yoyo that had the car before me replaced the 5 with a 4. When I asked why he said he was too lazy to look for a 5. Go figure.

[jglutz]

Lucky!

[Smedley]

The yoyo that had the car before me replaced the 5 with a 4. When I asked why he said he was too lazy to look for a 5. Go figure.

Mine is a '92 GL and it has a 4 speed in it. We didn't know it when V8 got it because at the time, it also had a broken timing belt and a couple of other problems. After he got it running, we couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go into fifth. Had a mechanic friend double check that we weren't crazy and...nope somehwere along the line, someone had replaced the tranny and put in a 4 speed!

Then last fall, my step-daughter bought one for herself and it also has a 4 instead of a 5. We know the ex-owner of that one and he said that when he had tranny problems, the mechanic could find a good used 4 speed, but not a 5, so that's what they put back in the car.

I think a lot of backyard mechanics must have been picking up junkyard specials to replace broken trannys, and most of the Festys in the junkyards are the earlier ones! At least they are around here.

[lessersivad]

The yoyo that had the car before me replaced the 5 with a 4. When I asked why he said he was too lazy to look for a 5. Go figure.

Glad you figured out what the cause was. Do you think the string was from the yoyo??

[GenevaDirt]

Glad you figured out what the cause was. Do you think the string was from the yoyo??

it was probably from the pull starter or the escaped gerbil that makes our cars move.

[JoDan]

OR..... maybe someone put a hit out on you and they rigged your car to do that so you would end up like that 80 yr old man:-?

[packrat427]

it was probably from escaped gerbil that makes our cars move.

Or a Hamster....LOL

[GenevaDirt]

^^lmao