bdub217

I was cruisin' home tonight in the old beast and decided well let's see what 0-60 is like with the new tune up and exhaust etc...... it's all good until I take my foot off the the gas and the engine just keeps goin' faster...... first I pull up on gas pedal thinkin it's stuck down.... nope.....thought about nuetral for a second but then was like um high rpm = neutral = mess .......so i just turned the key and pulled over..... turns out some jacka$$ put the air cleaner nut on too tight and it was hitting the choke.... maybe i wont put it on so tight next time ....doh.

oldcutlass

Lol, been there and done that!

Lady72nRob71

Glad you knew just what to do and there were no problems. Did you get the toyota briefing by chance??
I bet your air filter is a bit crushed also or worse yet the top of the carb deformed. Might want to check those. It is easy to overtighten them things for sure.
I had an unintended accelleration event like that with my mom's 86 Cutlass. I did just what you did on a residential street but only up to 30 was the plan. The 4bbl opened and never closed. I did hit 60 even around a corner. Shut the engine down like you did and pushed it home. Found out her DA mechanic lost her original throttle spring and used some other little crap spring, not even installing it right. He got a good ***-chewing the next day for sure.
At least on these older cars with mechanical throttles, it is easy to see what causes events like these so they can be fixed. Electronic / software gremlins just hide, even from the techs who are supposed to fix em.

bdub217

yeah, was easy to fix on side of road. everything is straight n arrow sir!!!! i did check that as i was inspecting everything =) thanks for your input guys!!

70cutlass350

I'm one of those guys who are supposed to fix those problems.....those gremlins can be a very big pain in the A** to find sometimes....but it sure is nice to have a computer tell you what it going on with the engine.

bdub217

i'd rather stay away from computer controlled stuffs if i can....it gets nasty in there!

Rickman48

Had the same thing happen with a friend's '71 W-30 after I tuned it!
Did the same thing, and pulled over - cheepo air cleaner base had a spot to clear the linkage I hadn't noticed!

ThePackRat

Bout' 20 years ago I picked up a 77 Riviera w/an Olds 403 for next to nothing.

The 1st couple of days I had it ... I was driving it quite a bit & giving it a good going over.

Cruising down the highway after having it a few days ... I realize I had yet to see if the cruise control worked.

So I go to set it.

Imagine my surprise when I pushed the button in .....

And the trans dropped down into 2nd gear - the secondaries opened up & it just took off at full throttle.

Fortunately nothing bad happened as a result.

It was funny the following day ... but kinda scared the shat out of me at the time.

Made for an interesting conversation piece & entertainment for passengers after that.

"Hey watch this".
(pulls foot/leg back - clearly away from accelerator pedal)

Look on passengers faces when car takes off = priceless.

AZ455

So did you get a 0-60 time?

Glad you kept her under control!

66luvr

My first experience with my pedal sticking to the floor was about 1970, driving a 55 Chevy 2dr post with a 283, "097" cam with solid lifters, Borg Warner 4spd with Hurst shifter, 411 gear. Left a red light normally, the pedal goes to the floor by itself and stays of course, gotta do something quick, so I did what came naturally, grabbed second gear, then 3rd and 4th real quick which dogged the engine enough for me to shut the key off and push the clutch in, coast to the side and fix the return spring,,, after I stopped shaking.
Ever had a broken motor mount cause the throttle to stick wide open? That was a 61 Impala 2dr hardtop. The fan makes a lot of racket on those metal fan shrouds.

Allan R

Had the throttle stick wide open 2X
1. 72 Olds cutlass with aftermarket cruise. The chain from the vacuum pod to the throttle linkage stuck on a WOT pass.

2. 95 Olds 98. Everything is electronic. Still to this day don't know why when the cruise was turned on, the engine went to WOT. Shut it off. Coast to a stop. Restart - WOT. shut off. Remember it's electronic? Wait 3 minutes; restart. Normal throttle. Never happened again but scared the poop out of me...