My festy started acting weird tonight. (possible throttle)

[WBBulldogs]

I was driving home tonight and I was going about 75MPH when I started to slow down for my exit. When I started down shifting I noticed that the RPMs were high. When I came to a stop the car sounded like it was at a good 3000 rpms or a little higher. It was like the throttle got stuck. I pulled over and I messed around with the throttle assembly on the carb and it didn't seem or look like it was stuck.

I started the car up again and it started and resumed the very high rpms again. I was only a mile away from my house so I just put it in a high gear to prevent the rpms from constantly being at a high rpm. I just parked it when I got home. I'm real tired so I'll deal with it tomorrow.

So does this sound like a throttle cable problem? Or maybe something to do with the carb? I'm just confused why it would do this all of a sudden.

[monkeyracing]

Sounds like your typical throttle getting stuck open problem. One thing you may want to check on the cable is to see if it's frayed where it goes into the cable housing. I had that problem on one of my cars. If that's not it, move the throttle plate back and forth very slowly (manually) and see if there's any sticking at all.

[WBBulldogs]

After reading oxbrain's topic I found a bit of info that might also be the problem. They were talking about coolant lines that go to the throttle body on injected models that keep the throttle body from freezing. Since mine is a carbed model it doesn't have coolant line thus it freezes around here and lately it's been below freezing especially tonight. Could the butterfly in my carb be stuck? If so would it be stuck open or closed?

[monkeyracing]

It'll get stuck wherever it gets stuck. More likely open than closed, though. As the fuel enters the carb it is atomizing, and that creates rapid cooling. Combine that with the vacuum created in the engine, and you've got a high potential for the carb icing up.

[WBBulldogs]

So I tried to diagnose it today and I don't think the throttle's stuck because while it was running I moved the throttle the opposite way just to see if it was stuck. It didn't do nothing. So that rules out anything to do with the throttle cable. I'm getting real frustrated.

[DuritzCrows17]

I agree with monkey racing, lots of times the throttle plate is the culprit.

[WBBulldogs]

Well the Terminix guy that comes around here also does side jobs fixing cars and the damn throttle cable was snagged up by something by the linkage. He helped me and now it works. Thanks for the help guys.

[monkeyracing]

Yup, when my throttle cable frayed the symptoms only showed themselves occasionally. The single frayed strand would stick on the outside of the housing once, then maybe not again for a month.

Glad you got it fixed.