3 trips to the shop, including a replaced throttle body and throttle cables, and it still sticks whenever it feels like it. Hot weather or freezing, engine cold or hot. Most times shutting down and letting it sit for a while will cure it....

Until it happens again. That may be days or weeks later. Sometimes it's after accelerating from a stop - classic stuck throttle symptom. Sometimes it's on start-up before I even press on the gas pedal - NOT classic stuck throttle symptom! Sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's wild. Last weekend (in snow) it put me up on the sidewalk when I tried to park!

Any ideas?

 

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Strange... which engine? My '90 5.0 had a chronic stuck throttle and it turned out the T.B. and cable were fine. The linkage on top of the TB was binding up, so I tore it apart, cleaned it up, and it returns fine now...

 

Oh. DUH! Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that tiny detail - it's the 5.0 engine.

Since I posted the question, I dug under the hood myself. As far as I can tell, that TB has not been touched. The nuts on the hose clamps for the air ducts had been recently wrenched, as I could plainly see the marks - grease & grime had been displaced. The nuts holding the TB looked corroded in place, and the springs MIGHT have been squirted with some very light lube, like silicone perhaps. The ball & joint of the throttle connection was quite rusty. (Yes, I just LOVE honest shops! Too bad this one didn't turn out to be one of the honest ones!) I disconnected it and applied white lithium grease to everything. I left the speed control disconnected, just in case a malfunction there was causing the problem.

I'm going to let it run that way and see what happens. Being an intermittent, it's hard to say if I've cured it, but haven't had a problem since Saturday.

Now that I've said that, it will lock up on my wife the next time she drives it!

 

Yeah... That's sort of what happened to me as well... throttle stuck... I squirted some lube in there... it went away for awhile... then came back... lubing didn't fix it... then I ripped it apart and found corrosion on the pivot rod and linkage... emory cloth and narrow wire brush seems to have fixed it for now...

One other thing. Be carefull if you have to pull the cable off the linkage. Mine came off and went back on easiy enough the first few times, but then the socket seemed to wear out and I've been having a darned of a time trying to find the right replacement... There are two different cable designs and I forget which years cover the style that you can still get... may not be an issue for you... just pay attention to it.

Good luck.

 

Yep. Not something that would be there (to the extent I found) if the shop had really done anything in there.

Yeah, I saw that right away. Metal ball and plastic socket - a recipe for planned obsolescence!

Thanks for the heads up on that - I'm hoping to limp this thing along until the end of the year or so, then replace it. I bought the thing on eBay last year (from the Boston area), and it looked good until I got underneath it. I've never seen so much rust! If I need any major suspension work, I'm probably going to have to scrap the van, because I doubt things can be disassembled without breaking. I had to clamp and JB Weld an exhaust pipe break, because the only alternative was to replace the entire exhaust sytem from the manifold back - things are just too rusty to weld or disassemble. I'm pretty sure it sat in some impound yard for a few years before I got it. Sat with salt on it. The trailer hitch was rusted almost through on both sides where it mounted to the frame. Even after multiple soakings in penetrating oil, those bolts wouldn't budge. I finally cut it off with an abrasive wheel. Didn't take much.

Next time I'll buy one from a fleet - and NOT sight unseen from a northern state!

 

Well, you're in luck there - that's the one you can get... I have a metal ball w/ metal socket... but the bracket and clip is different so I can't sue the plastic socket version... and the metal socket cable is "unobtainium."

Yikes! Yeah, defnitely sounds like you'll be that truck's last owner...

 

Update time!

Well, I DID find a temporary solution. I rigged a short piece of 5/32" stainless cable from the throttle body to run through the doghouse where the driver could reach it. Made a loop on the end, so when the throttle sticks, it can be manually pulled back down. It works.

However, since doing that, I've found a permanent solution:

Scrap the car.

The brake lines rusted out, and given the badly rusted condition of the underside, repair would cost more than it's worth. Too many parts rusted together, making ANY repair a major job, and no guarantee that something else major won't break next week. Hmmm. I notice that I mentioned that kind of possiblity way back in February!


So, anybody want to buy parts from a 94 Econoline?



Anyway, we've now got a very nice 96 E-350 12 passenger. Bought it at a GSA auction for $6,900, and it has a whopping 16 thousand miles on it!!

Yep, that's what I said. Sixteen THOUSAND. It was a gummit pool vehicle, and I guess nobody wanted to drive the van that had only an AM/FM radio. Not even a cassette! Also, the rear passenger door would not open from the outside. That took me half an hour to figure out, and 15 minutes to fix. Cost me the price of one screw.