I was driving it when the throttle broke. I lost about an inch and a half of throttle play at the pedal. It still had a little response, but something was obviously wrong.

Driving up the hill, I couldn't get full power, and when I had to slow down for the turn, it didn't want to back off -- it was the first time I've ever had to use the brakes to slow down going up that hill. This isn't good.

Got it home and parked it in the driveway, then opened the hood to start looking.



The throttle linkage bellcrank had way too much play in it. Like that line from "The Music Man", I call that "slop".

This comes at a bad time. Out of four vehicles, this is the one that's running. The other truck lost a lobe off the cam, and it's in the shop that rebuilt the motor a year ago. The wife's daily driver went intermittant on starting, and the Buick mechanic and I are both scratching our heads over it. The Escort (our "newest" car) dropped a valve seat, then blew the head gasket twice, so it's sitting at the HS Auto Shop while my son uses it as his "Project Car". Four cars, and none are running. Well, expletive!

Got a rental so the wife could commute and wouldn't lose her job.

Asked a friend to run me to the junk yards. Whoops, the main one I was relying on isn't there any more! Fortunately, there are some others about a mile away, but none of them turned up the part. It seemed like every truck that was of appropriate vintage had the engine removed, and that part dissapeared when the engine did. Zero for Four, now Zero for Four again.

Came here to do some research, found out the name and the part number (well, that's a relief!).

Called in an order for the part, billed the cost to the charge card. US$45 for the part (New, Old Stock) and US$12 for shipping.

When the part finally showed up, it was not quite right. Part number matched, but it didn't look like the one off my truck.



The old one is the one on the left. As you can see from the picture, the upper part is the same, but the base plates are different.



The mounting holes are the same (relative to each other), but the footprint is different.



Also, the new part lacked the "Z Fold" that was present in the older part (shown in the right side of this picture).

I probably could have mounted this part on my truck, but it would have moved the operations somewhat closer to the centerline and it would have raised the linkage about an inch and a half, possibly making it interfere with the underside of the air filter housing.

I decided to swap the base plates.



The first job was to cut the ears off of the hinge pins. I used vise-grips to hold the pin while cutting it, and the Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel. It didn't take much. Note the F-250 hood emblem in the background.



Then it was the same thing for the new part.



Here are the parts ready for re-assembly. Note the condition of the hinge pin that's painted. If you look closely, you can see obvious wear at two places on each end. This is part of what gets sloppy when these things wear and get old.



I took the parts with me to the local hardware store. In looking through their various fasteners, I considered (and rejected) several different things to replace the hinge pin. I considered Clevis pins, Cotter pins, a steel nut & bolt and some other stuff. I finally spent 36 cents on a "Speed Nut" that just presses onto the end of the hinge pin. I used a small socket to set the Speed Nut all the way onto the hinge pin.

For those of you that are interested, the hinge pin seems to be 1/4 inch round stock.



Here's the part ready to go back in. I wanted to paint it, but couldn't get any high-temp engine enamel in blue. I'll do it some other day.



So it's installed back into the truck now. I don't know if it runs, but I'm confident that it will when I try it.

Right now, I've got a bunch of other things to do.

I hope these pictures help someone else on this forum.

 

I got rid of the bell crank and used a straight rod instead. The rod and ends are from Speedway but there are cheaper sources for a rod.

 

I went with cable setup from locker (hope I spelled that right). Had to make some simple brackets but I,ve done this in a few trucks over the last twenty plus years they are working great. No slop instant response.

 

2x with Mavsprint..... But go to a salvage yard grab the throttle rod and ball stud from a 78-79 to ditch the funky trapeze setup.

 

It looks like you got rid of the stock intake and carb as well.

All things considered, I'll stick with the bellcrank and rods for safety's sake.

I hope you never break a motor mount. If you do, you could be facing an avalanch condition that could end fatally.

Furthermore, I've performed emergency roadside repairs on my throttle linkage in the past with wire that I've found at the edge of the road. I don't think I could do the same with the rod assembly you're showing in that pic.

 

A cable assembly makes some sense to me, so long as the appropriate safety precautions are followed. The flexibility of the cable should nullify any chance of improper operation due to shifting of the engine while under way, provided it's long enough, mounted correctly and routed correctly.

But I can't picture me doing an emergency roadside repair on it, like I've done with the stock linkage.

 

I guess you won't be caught dead driving a Dent and trusting Ford's engineering as my 76 CC 4WD 360 has a stock straight rod with no bell crank, and can still be wired together if the clip breaks. And stock motor mounts are designed to not break part and totally separate in a catastrophic failure.

 

Interesting. I wonder if they'd fixed the engine shifting issues by then.

The catastrophic motor mount fialure that I saw (which led to a wide-open-throttle problem) occured on a vintage GM muscle car. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the car was used for years after the problem was fixed. The owner said that the event caused him to leave "pucker prints" on the Driver's Seat.

Can it happen with an old truck? I'd say it's not likely, but I'd rather not be the guinea pig.

BTW, I've got a bagfull of linkage clips in the glove box. I don't want to rely on my ability to find wire along the side of the highway if it ever happens again.

 

Let me know if you have a problem like that again. I'm two hours north of you and we have two wrecking yards here full of Bumps and Dents. I bought a throttle bellcrank from one a couple of years ago and shipped to an FTE user in Canada who simply couldn't find one up there.

 

I don't know about anybody else, loved this pic. Intake, hardware, rod, etc. Good job Mav.

 

Thank you. I also eliminated the bell crank on the Maverick column shifter and replaced it with a rod. Those things just look overly complicated to me.