High Idle, Throttle Sticking

[Ryan S.]

I am having a same issue. First time I took the throttle linkage off to replace my thermostat, everything went fine. No issues with idle/RPM. I had to take it apart again last week to access my water pump hoses and now throttle doesn't go back down. I am guessing that I may have move/pushed throttle linkage parts around too much while I was accessing water pump area???? I may have handled it rougher than before. I hope I didn't damage or stretched anything.
Anyways, I sprayed some lubricants and even added the spool spring back in but no luck. It always springs back to the original position but not quite enough (by a hair). I have to push the spool and RPM backs down to normal idle speed. I may just take it apart again and try to reassemble carefully.
Thank you

[Bitsyncmaster]

Another issue I found on my car was the clip on the passenger side valve cover had worn through the outer black plastic cover. Then water starts to rust it there. It's easy to look at after you remove that clip.

[dn010]

Felix didn't mention it, but I know when I park it in the garage and it revs up to 1,500 or 2,000 I can usually "snap the gas" and it'll settle right back down to the standard 775 RPM.

When I had this issue with my original engine, I ran a spring from the throttle spool where the linkage connects, to the rear closing panel. It didn't look extremely nice but, problem solved. The spring would pull on the spool to keep it closed, kind of like old cars with carb springs to return the linkage.

[Rich]

I am having a same issue. First time I took the throttle linkage off to replace my thermostat, everything went fine. No issues with idle/RPM. I had to take it apart again last week to access my water pump hoses and now throttle doesn't go back down. I am guessing that I may have move/pushed throttle linkage parts around too much while I was accessing water pump area???? I may have handled it rougher than before. I hope I didn't damage or stretched anything.
Anyways, I sprayed some lubricants and even added the spool spring back in but no luck. It always springs back to the original position but not quite enough (by a hair). I have to push the spool and RPM backs down to normal idle speed. I may just take it apart again and try to reassemble carefully.

There are a couple of things to try additional to notes already posted here. The first bit may help isolate which part of your throttle system is the problem. Sometimes it is due to a combination of little things.

A. Separate the throttle ball-arm link from below the cable quadrant and run the engine in neutral using that arm to test it. If it still won't quite idle then the problem is downstream, otherwise it's in the pedal/cable/quadrant end of thing. The ball link pops off easily like the door strut link does, using a tiny keeper pin.

B. On the throttle side of things see if your throttle spring looks clean. A good long spray of brake cleaner thru the plastic nozzle/extension can get a lot of built-up gunk off of the return spring down by the throttle body, reducing the friction between the coils.

C. On the cable side you need to verify that there is slack in the cable at the throttle-closed condition (with the link connected up again).

D. And be sure that the cable quadrant return spring (coiled around the outside of the quadrant spool) is on the tighter of the two detent slots on the body.