Too much? accelerator linkage freeplay 220D.

I can press down about an inch on the accelerator on my '71 220D before the engine revs up. This makes shifting the manual transmission and coordinating clutch realease smoothly with engine speed, hard to do. All the mounting points on the firewall are secure, I adjusted the accelerator pedal as per the CD and I've lengthened the linkage rods as much as possible to take up the slack. It seems the the first rod coming off the firewall is spring loaded for some reason and this is where the freeplay is comming from. Can this spring be eliminated?

[Jeff72_220d]

No. Not advisable to remove that spring. You must have something missadjusted. My '72 220d revs fine. (Not a lot of oomph, of course) Not sure if I have any extra play in the pedal/rod/levers. I noticed that there are two plastic brackets holding the horizontal rod (parallel to, and against the firewall). Any chance that one of them is broken?

Jeff Naumann

[psfred]

The only play in the linkage on my 220D is the slop in the ball fittings.

Check for a loose pivot that allows the linkage to go sideways instead of straght.

Also, check the fast idle cable adjustment and the fuel shutoff adjustment -- if these are out, especially the fuel cutoff, you may not be getting good fuel delivery until you open the throttle wide.

Don't mistake poor reponse for lack of linkage movment!

Peter

[HGV]

I had the same problem with my 1963 and 1969 diesels. I narrowed it down to the butterfly valve on the intake manifold. The bushings where shot and contributed to about 90% of the slop. I went to a junk yard and got a new throttle body for the manifold and it took care of it. I did this about 20 years ago but I still remember those old cars.