Was going to drive my '89 Grand Marquis over to the gf's yesterday, since I had'nt driven the car in awhile.

So I checked fluids, tire pressure.etc... and took off down our dirt road. Well, as soon as I pulled onto the road, I realized that the accelerator was acting really really tough. Taking ALOT of pressure to move. Once I got to a certain point of pressure though, it broke free and went down to about 3/4 throttle. I attempted to pull my foot off the pedal, however the car did'nt slow down, instead, continued accelrating.

(now, it has happened before, but only for a very short instance, and I would'nt have any trouble once I tapped the brake)

So, I hit the brakes, and then released them. No luck. Car kept accelerating. By this time I am probably doing 30mph or so. I began pumping the brakes, playing with the accelrator pedal trying to get it to come back up, but it would'nt. So, I am laying on the brakes with my left foot, tryin' to pry the gas pedal up with my other foot, all while sliding and half fishtailing down the dirt road.

I eventually get the car down to about 10-15 mph and knew I would have to put it in nuetral. Pull lever into N and engine starts revving like crazy. Hopefully before it's redline I was able to shut the car off knowing a bottomed out accelerator + nuetral = bad things. So, I tried to start the car one time, and the same thing. Hammered pedal in park, shut car off almost instantly.

Dad came down the road, and we played with it, apparently there is some kind of bracket by the throttle under the hood that was not catching.

Has anyone ever experianced this with their car. This happened in my '89 Grand Marquis with a 5.0, so I was wondering if 'Stang owners with thier 5.0 have had this happen.

Sorry for the long read.
(actually, brake lines actualy ruptured at the same time due to rusted out lines. So i guess im lucky it happened when it did instead of losing brake fluid and brakes on the interstate at 80 mph,,anyone know how much brake lines cost???[])

 

Brake lines are fairly cheap as long as you have flaring tools to install them, you are very lucky this didn't end up different, ihave never heard of the mustangs throttle sticking, i'd replace the throttle cable, and the springs on the throttle body that control the throttle, and then test it out on jack stands or a lift before taking on a highway. glad to hear your alive....good luck

 

Man that happened to me in my 87 Grand Marquis 5.0! I was 16 at that time and I didnt know what to do cause it was just accelerating and had to hold the brake down with both my feet. Everytime I put it in drive the tires would just chirp, I finally got it home wiggled the throttle linkage and then it never did it again. [sm=badbadbad.gif]

 

yea, i had it in drive,, just coulndnt take it out safely w/o the risk of blowing up the engine...

it's kind of scary knowing there is an intersection in front of you at some point, and you still need to find a way to slow down..*sigh*....

gonna find out more about it tomorow when i dont have school in the evening, so i can ttalk with my dad and actually 'see' what he was talking about with the cables and whatnot..

 

The first thing to do when the throttle sticks is to turn the key to the "accessory" position.Don't turn it to "off" because that could lock the steering wheel.
The emergency brake can also be used here to help rub speed out of the rear wheels and to help control fishtailing.
Always be thinking "what if".

 

yea the same thing happen to me the throttle got stuck i was going down a busy street too coming to a red light i had to put the car in N to turn it off what had happen to my car was a cable under the t/b had came off so the t/b got stuck at w/o/t i almost sh*t myself
this happen in my 93 5.0 lx

 

To get accessory, you must go through off.[sm=bangbang.gif]

Simply kill the engine.