The car, 1995 x300, was running smoothly. Took it to get the state inspection done, on the way, the accelerator started acting jerky. It was moving on its own, like a gremlin under the hood pulling and pushing the cable.

When I bring it home, I plan on pulling the throttle body off for a good cleaning (when I had the intake manifold off, I won't say how dark it looked inside the head) and replacing the air filter, but should I be looking for something else?

The mechanic passed it all, with 2 exceptions: the jerky pedal wouldn't let it go over 25 MPH, and an exhaust leak before the cat (didn't say which one) that he couldn't see, but felt from under a heat shield.

Having not seen that much of the car yet, I'm not familiar with the exhaust - should I be scared that I have have a cracked converter? I'm picking it up tomorrow morning.

I've got no warning lights on the dash.

Funny part - it's passed emission testing, even with the exhaust leak.

 

Does it have traction control? If so, it sorta sounds like the t/c is operating when it shouldn't be.




Cleaning the t/b is good on general principles. Not sure if it'll fix your problem, but it can't hurt



Cracked exhuast manifolds are fairly common. Oddly, they seldom are audible



Cheers
DD

 

Would the traction control affect the pedal??

 

Yes.

If you have t/c your throttle cable goes from the pedal to the t/c unit and a second cable goes from the t/c unit to the throttle body.

The t/c unit is an actual electric motor to will force the throttle back. You can feel it at the throttle pedal


Cheers
DD

 

I had a similar issue a few years back. Pressing the pedal would not open the throttle at all. A cleaning of the exterior linkage solved my issue.

If your car has never had the throttle body cleaned I suspect you'll find a huge improvement by thoroughly cleaning it.

 

Doug was spot on!!! I turned off the traction control, and it drove normally. Now I need to find out what's wrong with the traction control.

Can I guess that it uses the ABS sensors and that they may need a look into?

 

Yes




Maybe. Typically a wheel speed sensor problem would turn on the "ABS" light, though. I've never had to delve into the t/c system so I'm no help.

Someone will chime in.

Cheers
DD

 

both lights (Trac Control and ABS) decided to lights up last week, but resolved themselves.

This leads me to believe that the ABS sensors are the culprit, but strange that the lights are still on. Eh, that's what weekends are for.

 

Sooooo, what's the secret to removing the rear ABS sensors? That bolt just keeps them from spinning around. How do you get them out?

 

Wiggle wiggle, pull pull. They'll come out eventually.


Cheers
DD

 

I'll keep trying. Would a lubricant be a bad thing?

 

Can't hurt. Clean the area as much as possible and keep dribbling your Liquid Wrench or whatever. Some of it is bound to eventually work its way in.


Cheers
DD

 

are we sure there's no circlip or anything that holds the things in? It spins a whole lot more, but it's not budging up a bit. I'm wondering if I'm not going to have to pull the hub to tap it out from the inside.

 

No they just pop out as far as I can tell.. Just keep at it.. Good luck