very stiff accelerator (not pedal

[Brian R]

The accelerator pedal (not "gas" pedal obviously, neither throttle pedal because doesn't throttle imply that you have a venturi, a la carbeuretor?) on my '89 W250 is very hard to press. Maybe I'm just a baby but it actually causes my knee to ache (I'm a runner, though, so I might have other contributing factors). Worse, though, is that this is my wife's truck and she finds it difficult to drive. She's only 5' tall and I have put a block on the pedal just so she can reach it. However, the effort required to press it is very high. I think the problem might be the transmission kickdown spring. Does anyone have a similar problem and/or know a way to fix it?

 

[Paul Herioux]

There was a service bulliten issued for this problem back in 1990. It involved changing the throttle bracket, kickdown cable, and the return springs for the throttle and kickdown cables. About a year ago I checked on this package for my truck. There was one left in the country at a dealership in New York. The wanted $250 for it wholesale (I still worked in a dealership service department at the time). All the parts except the bracket were available seperately individually. I went the cheap route and ordered the springs only. It seemed to help some but it's still pretty heavy. If you can find a 93 or 93 for parts somewhere it should have the updated parts on it.

Good luck.