Throttle Return Spring

When I first drove the car out of the garage to put it on the trailer for Blyton, I noticed the throttle cable was sticking and not returning to the idle/rest position.

Time didn't allow for us to fix this before we got there so it was something we would have to do on the Saturday morning before taking it on the track.

The first reason for this became apparent immediately - there was no throttle return spring set up. A temporary fix was put in place using three or four springs I had in the toolbox, connected up wherever and however they would attach. It wasn't perfect but it helped.

Looking at some other cars with iron block set ups, I noticed they all had proper return spring bracketry and fixings. A call to Ken and EDA on the Monday morning sorted this problem and a proper return spring set up was on it's way.

The second problem was that the hole in the bulkhead that the throttle cable passes through wasn't lined up correctly with the top of the accelerator pedal. This was re-drilled trackside.

It wasn't a perfect solution but it got the car drivable.

Once the new kit arrived, it was a simple case of removing the front left carb mounting bolt, and locating the throttle return spring bracket under it and connecting the two springs to the throttle control lever. There were two types of spring in the kit. One for road use and one for track. I tried both but settled on the track use springs which are slightly stronger and allow for a faster return of the pedal.

The next time I ran the car after fitting the bracket, I noticed that fuel was leaking from under the gasket where the carb mounts onto the manifold. A closer inspection revealed that the bolt holding the throttle return spring bracket in place was too short to tighten down correctly so a longer bolt was fitted and all four tightened back up - hopefully this will eradicate the problem.