So, I've noticed alot of movement in the plate that the accel cable and pedal rod attach to. I figured that it was bushings, but when I pulled the floorboard and cables, I noticed that the shaft for the plate seems OK, the plate is loose on the shaft. That's not right, is it? I haven't pulled the whole cluster yet. How does the plate attach to the shaft? Can it be tightened? The thottle cable gets hung up (stuck thottle ) under the floor board if I don't have alot of slack in it.

TIA,
Eric

Happen to have mine on the bench. Shaft goes through the plate. Shaft has a flat head on it which is tack welded to the plate. A bit ugly for factory work, so mine could have been repaired. Might have originally been a press fit.
I think you can remove the plate/shaft with cluster in place by removing the cotter pin. Probably not much harder to remove entire assembly, except you have to crawl under for the MC nuts.

Actually, it's furnace brazed. Need to clean as much of the brass as possible off the joint, and weld it. The Cap'n

Pulled the cluster, removed the accel pieces. Went to a friends house where he welded the shaft and plate together, he went a little heavy with the welder, so I had to do a little grinding to smooth the joint. It turns out that the DAPO (I mean that in a kind way) had already installed bronze bushings through the assembly before I got the car in '88. Thought about doing the full teardown and repaint but decided that I'd rather get the car back on the road for now. Maybe I'll get back to the cluster when I strip the interior for the inner longs, fuse panel, power window install, new door weather stripping, carpet kit, etc.

Thanks for the advice guys, it was very helpful.

Eric