Hi all,

I have a 2000 Mazda B3000 4WD Reg Cab Manual transmission with 143,000 miles. I've had it for 7 years.

This morning on my way to work I was driving about 50 mph when I felt the accelerator pedal 'give' - the resistance in the pedal just went away and all of a sudden my foot went to the floor and the truck accelerated. Hard. So I put in the clutch and the engine raced, of course. I sort of wiggled the gas pedal and it slowly came back, rpms slowly came back down. I carefully drove the rest of the way to work, the engine racing a little every time I shifted (although not as bad as I feared it would - maybe up to 4000). I also noticed that at idle, it won't go back to it's normal idle speed; instead, it stays at around 2000 rpm.

I don't know much about throttle linkage, but I looked up at the pedal and the cable seems fine - it's not getting stuck in the housing or anything, and the pedal moves completely freely, it just has no resistance or willingness to return back to the normal position once your foot is off it. So I'm assuming that there's just a spring somewhere in there which finally rusted through and broke, or something like that. Does that make sense? Or is there a second cable that handles the throttle return (like on a carburetor?) Your help is greatly appreciated! I don't have a local mechanic that I know very well, so I'd just as soon try to tackle this issue myself (if anyone knows a good mechanic in Bergen County, NJ, let me know!).

Thanks!

 

Okay, so I pulled off the linkage cover and sure enough - there's no spring there to pull the throttle cable pulley back. But none of the auto parts stores say they carry the spring - so I guess I need to just find a universal spring that'll work. Problem is, I can't even tell by looking at it where the spring is supposed to attach. Anyone got a photo of that? The manuals at Autozone.com don't show it, of course.

Thanks

 

go to a ford dealer.

 

Go to either a Ford dealer or a Mazda dealer. The Mazda dealer might be the better choice since Mazda was the seller of your truck. If you have any part of the spring to prove that it broke, that failure might be the start of an investigation that might lead to a recall. It certainly a safety hazzard.

Many years ago I had a Desoto (I told you it was many years ago) and the throttle linkage broke as I was going downhill with a Stop sign marking a state highway a quarter of a mile ahead. The Carb had an internal spring that threw the throttle wide open. Talk about a panic situation. Off went the ignition and on (hard) went the brakes. I got it stopped in time, but, no thank you for that design.