Marauder road trip: stuck throttle

[Fourth Horseman]

So I had to take a trip up to South Eastern Idaho for a funeral, and was pleased to get almost 25 MPG with my Marauder on straight highway driving over distance. 24.7 was the exact figure.

On the way back, however, I was cruising along at 80 MPH with the cruise control running. I climbed a hill and coming down the other side my speed kept climbing. At 90 MPH I said "WTF?" and tried to disengage the cruise control. No dice. It wouldn't respond to any input. So I hit the brakes, which should also have disengaged it. Also no dice. At 100 MPH I had to employ the brakes to slow down to 70 MPH or so, then take the car out of gear. As soon as I did the engine roared, heading up to 4k RPM in a split second. I killed the ignition and coasted to the side of the road.

I thought it was probably a stuck throttle, but decided to try disconnecting the battery for a moment to see if perhaps it was the cruise control 'stuck' some how. No dice. Upon re-attaching the battery and starting the car the engine immediately began to race. So I shut down and pulled the cover off of the throttle assembly.

The throttle cable had looped out of the little track it's in and wrapped itself around the black pully assembly it normally resides in. This had the effect of holding the throttle about 50% open.

It was easy to put it back, and I discovered that I could pull the cable out altogether, twist it (rotate it) a couple of times and put it back. Being twisted means that when the throttle is wide open the cable won't buldge over and get caught.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass along my odd little experience. :D Always a good thing to have tools in the trunk.

[Fourth Horseman]

Went out and snapped a couple of pics to help illustrate what happened:

Fist pic is of the throttle assembly with the cover in place:

[Fourth Horseman]

And here it is with the cover off and the throttle cable wrapped around, as it happened in the field, preventing the throttle from going back to idle position:

[gonzo50]

I hope I don't have to experience a stuck throttle, cruising from 70 mph, were the brakes and steering hard to manage with the ignition off, did you experience any malfunctions after you re-connected the battery with the ignition or computer system, was the idle quality of your car affected at all? Hope all is well.

[cyclone03]

I would take it to the dealer and report it.
Get it in the oasis file.
Go in and show them how you found the cable,maybe even make them change it! Something is not right,that cable should never come out of the cable guides like that!

[MAD-3R]

I agree, but there maybe a couple of questions about the mods...:)

[Fourth Horseman]

This is exactly why I haven't done any mods yet. I wanted to give the car time to shake out little problems.

Dead sticking the car to the side of the road was no problem. Brakes and steering were all managable. It took me only 5 minutes on the side of the road to correct the problem and then I was off again. So far I have not experienced the stuck throttle again.

After resetting the computer by disconnecting the battery I, of course, lost all my radio settings, clock setting, etc.

The car should take a few minutes to relearn its idle, but I was off at highway speed again immediately. When I did come to a stop next I did not notice an odd idle.

Everything seems back to normal, but I will definitely be reporting this to my dealership.

[Polizei703]

We're all grateful when someone goes to the trouble of posting pictures about the problems you encountered, If someone has not done it yet you get a big thankyou from all of us.

[chapel1]

WOW and DITTO Polizei703,WTF and change my shorts and thanks for the pixs.

[Larry Vogel]

Thank heavens it was not the wife or a teen aged driver behind the wheel when that happened! I don't think it needs to be said but yours may not be the only one it will happen to. Glad you made it safely to the side of the road. On my own cars with solid linkage I use a kill switch in case it hangs up or I break a motor mount.

[Jim]

In a rental Sable in NJ, I had a throttle cable come disconnected from the bellcrank; the inverse situation: No throttle! Gas pedal was just lying on the floor, useless like a turnpike toll ticket.

Luckily, at highway speeds, I was able to take whatever highway I was on all the way back to Newark airport and off the exit ramp, just with the cruise control. About 40 minutes. Pretty amusing to me, but not to my passenger!

Pulled off the little road within 70 yds of the Hertz place, popped the hood, ripped off the cable cover (oops, broke it) and saw the problem. The cable end had popped out of the bellcrank. Put it back, and drove the last bit to the Hertz return... Told them they had a problem with their car, but don’t worry, I fixed it... I'm guessing they didn't do anything about it, if they even opened the hood… After all, I did fix it.

Anyhow, here's my analysis of what happened to that car, and probably yours too, FH:

Condition: cruise control on.

That cable is pulling the TB bellcrank. If you then accelerate with the gas pedal, that pulls the bellcrank *past* where the CC cable had it pulled; now that cable is slack. If you then re-apply the CC, or press 'accel' on the wheel, whilst slipping your foot off the gas pedal quickly, the throttle cable to the pedal goes slack, and the CC cable goes taut...

Anyhow, some combination of using the CC to speed up or control speed (on a hill, up or down?) and applying/releasing the gas pedal... This would create the taut/slack condition on the bellcrank that leads to this little situation..

What to do about it? Pfft, beats me. One at a time for pedal and buttons?

-Jim

[tetsu]

4th Horseman: Thanks much for posting your experience. I can only thank the heavens above that such a malfunction never happened to my
wife! :(

Jim: Thanks much for your analysis of the circumstances. I think you
are correct.

I think that Ford needs to think about enclosing the cable channel so that that cannot happen in slack conditions.

Johnny

[Fourth Horseman]

I don't recall manually advancing the throttle with the pedal while the CC was on, but I can't say for sure.

What I noticed is that when I take the cable out of the assembly it rides in that the entire cable kinks to the right. Like it has a natural bend to it. This is what causes the cable to sort of bow out of shape when it's slack, allowing it to hook around the throttle assembly and hold it open.

I've got the problem temporarily solved. I'll talk to the dealership about it later this week or early next.

I'm going to get my Flowmaster 40s put on first, I think. :D