Well last night I decided to break the coupe out of storage. Push the car out, check the fluids and air in the tire. Hook up the battery, turn it over, she don't want to start. After a little arguement it finaly started but not after a few light sneezes. It begins idleing a little high, rap the throttlle, no change. Open the hood check the choke, OK. Rap the throttle again, back to normal idle. HMMM choke acting up. Let it warm up after sleeping for a few weeks, hop in and lets go home. A few miles down the road the idle starts running away again. Rap the throttle, the car seems to respond to the pedal OK, still high. RPMs are still climbing. 3 desolate country road miles from home, I am now driving down the road, left foot hovering over the clutch and right over the brakes at 55. I am now 1-1/2 from home I can make it I said. A few spots of windy roads, some rights and lefts, one desolate stop sign, and I am home. Here comes the first left turn, I grab the shifter to make a really fast down shift, the F'ng shifter broke off in my hand. I throw the shifter on the floor and reach down to find a stub where my shifter was. Press in the clutch, RPM's scream, stab it into 2nd. Car starts to take off again. Stand on the brakes. Made that turn wide sweeping lazy left. 1/2 mile from home, here come a right turn. Step down on the shifter with my right foot (likes to kick out of gear, typical tired 39 tranny), step on the brakes to slow it down a bit. Tires screaching away around the turn. 1/4 mile to go, foot still on the shifter, standing on the brakes. Roll the stop sign at 20. Car takes off again, here comes the last left turn. Cheat the turn as much as possible, left side tires on the left shoulder, come out of the turn and I can see my yard now. 300 yards to go, I can make it. Take my right foot off the shifter step on the brakes, tranny kicks into neutral. Tach screams up to 5500, poor flathead. Aim for my yard as I am killing the ignition, coasted across the grass to the garage door, pulled parking brake. HOLY SHIT WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT? Walk around for a second to calm down, regain some composure, and grab a beer. Open the hood to find a 1/4-20 nut and lock washer laying on the engine block. The linkage fell apart, one carb went wide upen while the other stayed attached to the pedal. Grab the shifter, it broke where someone grafted on a swan type shifter to a stock shifter. Grab some wrenches, fix the linkage with a nylon locknut. Another beer, grind down the shitty ass welds, fire up the welder. Weld it up, grind it down, paint it up. Stuffed the stick back in the tranny. Fire it up and took it out for another shakedown, All is good. Piece of advice. MAKE SURE YOU SAFETY WIRE YOUR LINKAGE OR HAVE RETURN SPRINGS ON EACH CARB. Scarry shit can happen.
I prolly woulda killed the ignition at the begining of that mess, trailered/tow strapped it to my house and fixed it, then drank the beer.
That wouldnt have happened if you would have left the car alone....................stupid Hot Rodders.
Wow! sounds like you had a hell of a time, good thing that's all that happened. I had some close calls like that and dam that get your heart going.
i had something similar happen to me and a friend as we were playing around in his 70 GTO. we were doing burnouts behind a shopping center and the throttle stuck! i was riding shotgun and was praying he shut it off before we hit this wall about 200 foot away. fortunately it unhung itself and we were able to stop before the wall but i was worried there for a second. about 4 years later i built a slant six that was highly modified to say the least and when i fired it up for the first time the thing stuck wide open and that little motor was screaming. after i shut it off Rodney and i looked at each other and i asked him where the carburetor came from............guess what it was from the GTO! needless to say the land fill got that one!!!!
Had the throttle stick on the T the other day. First thing I did was kill the ingnition and coast to the side of the road to diagnose the problem. Guess my sense of adventure is a little rusty, or maybe it's that pesky self-preservation instinct. Glad it worked out OK.
SHEESH!! Glad you got her home. I would'a just killed the ignition and then try to explain to my dad why I was walking.
Um? WTF? Fucking Idiot? "Gee, My car wants to go WOT for some funny reason and I can't control it. Instead of turning it off and checking to see what is wrong, I think I will drive it home and endanger everyone on the road with me" The hell is wrong with you? I've had linkage problems before, and had my car stick @ WOT once. I promptly shut it off and pulled over.
What an adventure, glad you and your car are OK. Sounds like there could have been a few beers before all this happened.
I agree with you guys, kinda dumb to not kill it. But never was I out of control, once I got it in second gear, it never left second. I was on the brakes the whole time keeping it under 20mph. I guess I should have mentioned that I live in the middle of no where, it was 1 AM and no street lights in my neighborhood. No flashlight, no cell phone, no tools. I just busted the car out of storage. Sorry thirty7slammed, that was the first beer I had in six months. I don't drink. The second was to wash down the welding and grinding dust, thats all that was left in the shop fridge. Bort62, I have had cars go WOT before. There is a HUGH difference between a blown SBC and a tired old 90HP Flathead when they go WOT. I honestly thought that when the car sneezed I may have blown a powervalve and thats why it was idleing high. Like I said earlier when I rapped the throttle in the driveway the idle dropped back down to normal. There was no indication that the linkage had fallen apart. The only thing that threw me for a loop was when the shifter broke off in my hand.
The whole thing was odd in that it was idling high down the road but yet it responded to the pedal when I stomped on it. I could accelerate and decelerate but it was like on cruise control just running down the road. I thought it was a blown or leaking PV.
we all do dumb shit from time to time , glad to see it worked out ok and you managed not to kill anyone or yourself..
Glad you made it home in one piece. Move to Texas and you won't have to worry about those pesky winter storage issues!
Damn, glad nothing serious happened... Had that happen to me once with my 57, scary shit man..With my car, i just shut it off, there was no way i was going to hold it back had i tried to keep it running..Mine turned out to be a bushing on my linkage that twisted and held it at about half throttle even with a fairly stout spring.. Quick fix on the side of the road and i was back in business, but what a scary feeling.... Tony
Used to work on 671 Jimies & when they got old & you used starter fluid, they could get emotional & run backwards & start using the engine oil as fuel (2 stroke). They would run at full throttle (with it shut). The only way to stop them was to stuff rags down the air intake - that was fun.
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