Sticky gas pedal!

[Ignato]

I have a problem with my gas pedal. When I try to push it, it won't budge. But when I put enough force on it, it goes down, but quickly. I give it WAY to much gas. I look like some teenage kid hopin in the drivers seat for the very first time.
Not that I don't enjoy the occasional whiplash, but could I do to get rid of the stickiness?
I've sprayed some WD40 on all the mechanisms, but that just made it easier to push the pedal down once it became "unstuck". I might see if I can get into the cable and spray some silicon spray of WD40 down into there.....
Any suggestions?

 

[big83chevy4x4]

is it binding by the carb? you may wanna think about changing in a new cable /forums/images/graemlins/yikes.gif

 

[bpiccioni]

If you havent already, you might also try and get some lube down the cable sheath and see if that relieves the binding. My gas pedal is a bit firmer than I like but it's a lot less firm after getting some WD inside the cable sheath some time ago.

I found it easiest to remove the cable from the TBI (87 /forums/images/graemlins/burb.gif in my case) which made it easy to stick the little red WD tube right inside the cable sheath and give it a few squirts. However, I would imagine you could get a lot better lube than WD without the solvent properties. It might not be the best thing for the cable sheath, but so far so good.

Also, check the routing of the cable itself - mine seemed a lot longer than it needed to be and it was routed in looped fashion about the plug wires and cruise control servo. I rerouted the cable over all that mess and it seems to have helped.

Finally, run a search and see what you find - I seem to recall that this has been covered before - which is where I got the idea to squirt lube directly into the cable sheath in addition to the external moving TBI parts.

 

[Thunder]

Sounds like its time for a new cable. Shouldn't have to lube a throttle cable to make it work right. The cable is made out of a small stranded cable. Many times one of the little strands breaks and gets bound up between the cable and sheath where you cant see it. Lubing it may make the cable work again but dosn't fix the problem of a broken cable.

 

[wolfy87]

I had the same problem on mine. It was a gummed up throttle body that was making it stick. From idle the gas pedal wouldn't budge, but after you stamped it a few times.... then BANG, /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif all the way to the floor whiskey throttled and would pin me to the seat for a split second. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Srayed some B-12 in it, cleaned it up good, then ran a good flush in a full tank of gas. Smooth as butta now. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[dyeager535]

Disconnect the throttle cable at both ends. Pull it. Is it easy? If yes, cable is good, problem exists elsewhere. If it is hard to pull, then it's the cable.

Takes no effort whatsoever to pull the cable through the sheath when operating correctly.

 

[Ignato]

Thanks a lot people. It sounds like for now I can probably just spray some lube down the sheath. And I did notice how it loops around behind the tbi and stuff....
I will probably end up replacing the cable when I get time and money, though..
/forums/images/graemlins/waytogo.gif

 

[bryguy00b]

had that problem on my carbed truck, swapped in another cable, and befor i put it in a lubed the crap out of it.... /forums/images/graemlins/rotfl.gif.....been pretty good ever since...

 

[Ignato]

Turns out it wasn't the throttle cable. IT was the little poles that slide thru the throttle body to control the butterflys. There was a weird clicking sound when I moved the throttle, and once I sprayed the crap out of the connecting rods, it went away. (I used WD40) Feels like it's brand new! /forums/images/graemlins/woot.gif