Accelerator cable sticks again two weeks after I replaced it with a new one and my throttle body is smooth:
When the rear transmission ground strap which grounds the powerplant becomes unattached or weak, the engine uses the accelerator cable as a supplementary ground since it is the only other piece of the assembly connected to the chassis by a wire. (the power plant is suspended in rubber) This small cable takes a lot of electricity, and like a toaster element, gets hot and then starts to melt the plastic catheter causing the cable to stick. In the worst case the cable sheath melts into the accelerator cable steel tube and is impossible to get out with out removing the steel tube from the unibody. We hope that this never happens to you like it happened to me years ago!
ouch! good info tho. didn't think about it, ut it makes sense, that if is not getting grounded at the tranny where it should, then it will find a way...
I'll keep that in mind if I start getting throttle cable issues again... knock wood tho, a terry cable solved my issues.
It's good to be well grounded.
Yuppers! The worst part was when the gas pedal began to stick, I "punched" it thinking it would come back up....
Woo Hoo! That was a fun drive home from work that night!
Mike
fwiw, cleaning the ground strap connection... I used a dremel with a grinding wheel on the brass piece at the bottom of the trunk, and used a battery terminal cleaner on the threads. looks brand new after wards
Dremel FTW. The ground strap was the first thing I ever fixed on Babydoll, and I did exactly what Wayne said.
I have found that running a big ground wire from the starter to the negative battery post cured almost all of my starting and electrical issues. I have since done this on most of my cars. Makes a big difference.
As George says, the transmission ground strap is a critical component.
I found though that the body itself can cause problems. I had one car where the studs were fine at the battery and the transmission, however when I put a ground cable from the battery directly to the fan shroud (while keeping the ground to the stud) I had much better starting and charging. There is an 8mm or so sized hole in the fan shroud forward of the distributor for a bolt & nut to go through for the cable. While not concours, it sure made a big difference; and it is a much better current path to the alternator.
The last thing we need is for the clutch and throttle cables to be used as grounds.
Good info George, think I'll run two throttle cables now.
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