Cautionary tale for those of us with older stuff in the fleet
 

I had a good scare Saturday. I took our Chevelle to Cars N Coffee Saturday. Had a great time. On the way home, in traffic, I moved to the left lane to make a pass and hit the throttle pretty hard. The throttle did not return to idle. Both feet on the brake very hard, and in a matter of two seconds, both rear tires are laying down black marks at ~35mph. Bumped it to neutral and pulled the key back a notch to shut it down. I had to put the car in a very narrow median. With cars whizzing by next to me, I popped the hood to discover a broken throttle return spring. I was in a really bad spot relative to traffic, but I had no tools. I took the spring and stretched it with my hands, deforming the now straight end to add some length. The wire was too strong to make a hook with my hands. I took out my pocket knife and put the broken straight end in the frame of the knife, and used the frame to form a hook. I was quickly back on the road, but that was way too much excitement for me and the cars around me.


So how old was that spring? And why was there only one? We put that Edelbrock carb on there in ~1993. When we last rebuilt that motor, in ~1996, one of the two springs broke during reassembly. Forgot about it and never replaced it. The spring that broke Saturday was the "survivor" from the '96 rebuild, which was actually installed during the '86 rebuild. So that spring was at least 38 years old.



Lesson learned.

Glad you had the smarts to turn the ignition off! That was one of the first things my dad taught me when I learned to drive.

I recall a few years ago Toyota drivers calling 911 in a panic as their cars did 100 mph down the freeway with no clue what to do.

Good to know you, other drivers, and your vintage tin, are all in one piece!

been there and done that...not much fun.glad you had a place to pull into,it could have been ugly.

Yikes, glad it wasn't a worse outcome! I had this happen in a race car, and it was NOT fun. Thankfully I had a toe strap to pull back the throttle manually. Since then it's become something we replace every season. Throttle linkage is something to at least give a once over on a vintage hot rod every season.

Time flies doesnt it. Thats sounds pretty scary.

Glad you had the sense to react quickly and correctly.. Alot don't...
I doubled every carb return spring whether the factory had it or not after the same episode..
I inspect my own antique vehicles {no annual inspection required in this state} much better than any garage would..

Co worker blipped the throttle on his new rat rod last year and this happened. He made his garage door a taco.