Funny that this would come up tonight.

After years of thinking my 1983 300SD was just too darn tight.
I removed the spring on top of the valve cover that is coiled and hooked
on (under) the lever that the transmission cable attaches to, the cruise control attaches to, and the throttle attaches to.

If you have ever disassembled this whole thing to lubricate ( and I hope everyone here has done this at least once) you have to deal with this spring.

My motivation and comparison was that the 1980 300D has the smoothest and weakest throttle ever. I love that car.
But the 300SD makes my right leg hurt. I use cruise control a lot.

Tomorrow I will put on my daily 150 miles (4 days a week) and let you all know
how it went. Expecting the cruise control to work just fine.
Love the smoother operation.

I do keep an eye on the firewall mount point, I do lube the ball sockets, but I
did not know about that back of the pedal thing. I will check it tomorrow.

__________________
80 300D 340K Owned 30 yrs
83 300SD 440K Owned 9 yrs - Daily Driver 150mi/day
02 Z71 Suburban 117,000
15 Toyota Prius 2600 miles
00 Harley Sportster 24k
09 Yamaha R6
03 Ninja 250