Sticky throttle
Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:15 am
Hi all,
I finally got my +2S back from a local classic car mechanic (guy turned out to be "steady" at best - he had it seven months!!) and it was all polished up and running sweetly. I drove it 20 miles, decided to nip on to the motorway to open her up a little, put my foot FLAT to the floor on the sliproad and when I was rolling went to change in to 5th and **Vrrroooommm** - throttle stuck open!!
Girlfriend had had similar issues with an old Fiat Uno told me to pull the pedal back with my toe, which worked (thankfully!! stuck on the motorway with a wide open throttle is pretty hellish!)
So, limped home carefully, pulling the pedal back after each acceleration - once I got back to the garage, I did a little experimenting - seems it does return (slowly!) on its own if you leave it, so my guess is it's shed a spring somewhere. I'm loath to return it to the mechanic who kept it for seven months, so I'm going to try and sort this myself.
I dug around and found this thread, which has given me some ideas:
http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2238
I'll pop out and look later, but here is my summary - is there anything I've missed in my checklist?
- Seems there is a balance screw between the two carbs (twin Delortos in this case) - could've slipped somehow? I guess not, but don't know how the mechanism works.
- Could simply be bad luck/timing and the cable's knackered? (I don't think it's this as it happened too suddenly...)
- Maybe one carb has shed a return spring and the one on the other carb isn't quite strong enough to return both butterflies?
- Or perhaps when I over-vigorously applied the throttle I actually dislodged the return spring on the pedal?!
Anything else?
Cheers,
G
I finally got my +2S back from a local classic car mechanic (guy turned out to be "steady" at best - he had it seven months!!) and it was all polished up and running sweetly. I drove it 20 miles, decided to nip on to the motorway to open her up a little, put my foot FLAT to the floor on the sliproad and when I was rolling went to change in to 5th and **Vrrroooommm** - throttle stuck open!!
Girlfriend had had similar issues with an old Fiat Uno told me to pull the pedal back with my toe, which worked (thankfully!! stuck on the motorway with a wide open throttle is pretty hellish!)
So, limped home carefully, pulling the pedal back after each acceleration - once I got back to the garage, I did a little experimenting - seems it does return (slowly!) on its own if you leave it, so my guess is it's shed a spring somewhere. I'm loath to return it to the mechanic who kept it for seven months, so I'm going to try and sort this myself.
I dug around and found this thread, which has given me some ideas:
http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2238
I'll pop out and look later, but here is my summary - is there anything I've missed in my checklist?
- Seems there is a balance screw between the two carbs (twin Delortos in this case) - could've slipped somehow? I guess not, but don't know how the mechanism works.
- Could simply be bad luck/timing and the cable's knackered? (I don't think it's this as it happened too suddenly...)
- Maybe one carb has shed a return spring and the one on the other carb isn't quite strong enough to return both butterflies?
- Or perhaps when I over-vigorously applied the throttle I actually dislodged the return spring on the pedal?!
Anything else?
Cheers,
G