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(1989 240 GL automatic sedan)
Last week, after driving around town and noticing that the "kickdown" (the last part of the gas pedal, when depressed, that is more resistant to pressure, and when pressed beyond this threshold, usually shifts the transmission into a lower gear) felt a little strange, I sat down next to the driver's side door and messed around with the gas pedal.
Normally, the kickdown area is pretty rigidly defined, requiring a bit of pressure to jump the pedal into this zone, at which point it is fully depressed. However, while driving, it had felt a little less resistant to that "jump," but the zone was still rough and it wasn't "easy" to get the pedal down that far. I messed around with the gas pedal, pushing it all the way down with my hands and lifting it back up several times. I finally left it alone, not noticing any changes.
This week, I get in my car to drive somewhere (hadn't had to do any short trips last week; I'm at a fairly self-contained college) and the gas pedal is totally weird.
I can only push it down easily a fraction of its full distance, at which point it catches on something pretty tightly. Pushing harder makes the gas pedal jump beyond that point, but, of course, accelerate quite a bit.
So, I pull into another parking space, shift into neutral, and mess around with the gas pedal. It becomes a little easier to push it down a ways, but it still feels *very* strange. I drive to a nearby gas station to get some gas.
On the way there, part of the road is highway, so I'm able to get it up to faster speeds, at which point I discover the car is extremely reluctant to shift into overdrive. Like, it doesn't.
I get gas, make the resolution to myself that, if once I get onto the highway, I can't get it to shift into overdrive, I'll turn back around, park it, and find a mechanic to look at it. However, once I get going fast enough for a little ways, it miraculously shifts into overdrive!
I take my little trip since I know I'm not putting extra stress on the engine, but I'm careful to feel exactly what's going on during my entire trip.
About 200 miles later, I concluded a few things.
1. Overdrive is incredibly hesitant to activate.
Normally, it's jumping the gun at 40mph to turn on. However, now, it doesn't come on until roughly 55mph!
2. My engine is running at lower RPMs!
I took a picture of my car while traveling 80mph to document this. The RPMs were right at 3000, when, on previously occasions, they've been in the 3300-3500 range. I didn't notice so much a decrease at lower speeds, but the RPMs definitely do appear to me to be lower than they usually are, at least in overdrive.
3. The line to the gas pedal is sticking, or caught, or something.
I don't know what the gas pedal is connected with to the actual throttle, but I think it may be catching on something, something that I snagged it on while I was messing around with the pedal last week. Once I got the car going a little, the gas pedal worked pretty predictably, other than seeming to have the kickdown starting after the first 10% of pedal depression, instead of at the last 10%! I mean, if I pushed it beyond the little "rough" spot that had suddenly moved "up" the gas pedal, the car tended to downshift a lot more often than before.
Also, at one point during my trip, while I was easing up on the gas pedal, it got caught again, just like when I first got in the car. It was extremely difficult to push the pedal down more than just a few centimeters. After a few moments, the pedal cleared up and resumed its previous "odd" configuration, but that event worried me that the throttle cord could possibly get caught open and cause the car to acclerate without my intervention!
How is the car now? I reiterate, the gas pedal is still not "normal." The feedback I get from it while depressing it is very different from how it was just a month ago. It's really "stuck" only those two times, on start up and then in the middle of my driving, but I haven't let it sit for a while again before driving it, so it could be something from that.
Anyway, I've driven the car about 450 miles on it since I first noticed the problem Friday afternoon. I had to get someone, who was a 100-mile-trip away, pause for thirty minutes, and then drive back. I took the Brick out once or twice over the weekend, and then it was time to take the person back, so that was another 200-mile-journey punctuated by a brief stop. The gas pedal feels the same as it did after five minutes of driving Friday afternoon, which means the problem hasn't fixed itself.
Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Is it something relating to the gas pedal's connection to the throttle? Is it the gas pedal mechanism itself? Could there be a problem in the transmission? Is it (*gasp*) an overdrive solenoid issue? What should I check? What (and how) can I fix it?
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'89 244 GL--25/22 ipd sways, newly repainted!
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