In the last two or three months the gas pedal stuck while acclerating. In two previous instances it resolved itself quickly. But the second time I needed to pull the gas pedal up with my foot. This weekend the pedal stuck again and I was not able to pull the pedal back. I pulled off the road and my wife suggested I check and make sure the mat was not under the pedal. So I threw it in the back seat, started the car and the the accelerator was still stuck. I opened the hood and was able to manually push the cable back. I carefully drove home and parked it in my garage. I duplicated the symptoms in the comfort and safety of my garage. I manually pulled the gas pedal back and these components fell from somewhere under the dash. Can anyone identify these parts? Is this some jury rig? It looks like a valve spring. The gas pedal seems to work fine; I started it in the garage and could not duplicate the sticking pedal.
OK; that stuff looks like the over-center spring from your clutch pedal. Does it feel a little bit weird? They often fall out. For your accelerator, I'd say you should get a new accelerator cable on order. Yours is probably frayed inside the housing and is sticking. It will eventually break. DAMHIK.
Sound advice DAMHIK, Thank you for your prompt reply and analysis. I will go ahead and get a new cable. Dink
Internet jargon alert: DAMHIK is an acronym for Don't Ask Me How I Know, from which you can usually infer the speaker has firsthand embarrassing, expensive and/or painful experience with the exact same problem.
Korrektamundo, /Stig! I have had the relatively unique experience of shopping for temporary replacement BMW parts at JoAnn Fabrics (!) in order to nurse a recalcitrant E28 home. Not quite as heavy and nowhere near as serviceable, "Picture Hanging Wire" is a barely adequate substitute for what runs down the inside of an accelerator cable ... but it sure beats walkin'!
Replacing that throttle cable needs to be a top priority That is, unless you WANT that tree at the base of your windshield to become part of your car's standard equipment.
I Love this group... All this talk about stuck accelerators and all that gets discussed is how to fix the car. I'm thinking that a certain large Japanese-based manufacturer of commodity cars can only dream of such a user demographic, given recently disproven allegations of product defect based on, let's say, the performance of THEIR user demographic. With appreciation... Chris
Done! That was not easy being upside down and backwards feeding the cable through the firewall. Can't beat the satisfaction of DIY.