Stiff pedal with kickdown hooked up. Help please!
My car acts just like yours does XMoparX. I didn't have a Lokar cable setup on it at first, just had the stock linkage and it did the same thing, I also always had the Trans-go kit in it. I believe part of the problem is the spring Trans-go sends in their kit that goes between the throttle pressure valve and governor valve is real stiff. Over twice as stiff as the stock spring. In addition Mopar used a few different length levers on the kickdown on the transmission and the shorter the lever is the least amount of leverage it has so the harder it pulls. Maybe yours is like mine and has a short lever. What I did to make it the best I could is only use one lower return spring, the smaller one (like Trailbeast said it's spring loaded so it doesn't need more than 1 return spring) and I moved the throttle cable position up one notch. It's still not as easy as not having the kickdown hooked up at all but it's drivable. The next step would be to locate a little longer kickdown lever. Not more than 1/2" longer or it'll throw the ratio off at the carb and make adjustments hard. One last thing, get some graphite cable lube and spray it down in the kickdown cable until it runs out the other end. I know it doesn't feel like there's any friction there when you pull it by hand but I guarantee there is and lube will help too. It'll also make the cable last longer.
Here's something to think of: when you pull the cable by hand your pulling it straight on aren't you? When the kickdown cable is hooked up to the carb it's pulling it at an angle. That makes it harder to pull. Try pulling it at an angle and you'll see what I'm saying.
Your dad got extremely lucky that running his car without a kickdown didn't toast the trans. The kickdown is really a throttle pressure linkage that varies the internal pressure to the clutch packs and front band in the trans. depending on how far the throttle is opened. If his car had a shift kit in it that may be why it lasted because shift kits generally raise the pressures in a trans.
Thats what I always thought aswell from reading here on the forums. But my father swore up and down thats how he drove his duster around ( no shift kit or valve body work or anything) and said it never gave him troubles and he told me forget the kick down and unhook it and shift it manually and I told him I was told it would burn the trans up eventually. And that debate went back and forth for a bit lol.
Anyhow, I do recall adding the stiffer springs from the tf-2 kit....my problem is (like I mentioned in my last post) I dont have another transmission to compare to the tension I feel on the kick down lever when manually moving it by hand.
I thought of doing something similar.....custom making a kick down lever or extending the kick down lever to make for more leverage. I am unsure of which kick down arm I have now ( I want to say its 2" in length or so?). I will try to make it over to where I have the car stored tomorrow and get some pictures of the underside and how I have things routed and my kick down lever etc...etc... so everyone can get a better idea of the whole picture.
I normally run 2 springs on the carb linkage purely incase one ever broke for whatever reason there would be a back up ( I even stretched the outer spring so it barely has any tension on it...mostly there as a fail safe.
also, it seems like if it was an issue with the trans go having a stiffer spring causing a stiff pedal.....that alot more people here would have threads about it....its not jsut a little stiff...I could deal with a little bit...but this is ridiculous. to move the throttle pressure lever by hand...it does have decent resistance but I just cant see how what resistance i feel with my hand multiplies by so much when attached to a cable and pushed by a pedal with my foot. it seems like the resistance would feel even less when being pushed by a foot than it is by pushing it with 2 fingers from under the car.
also I have not tried graphite spray but I did try a lubricant to see if maybe it was jsut a dry cable and still no luck.
I also tried pulling the cable at different angles thinking maybe it somehow was pulling on an angle when under pressure and actually riding on the inside of the housing or something...but the cable feels just as free as when I ran it in and out straight on with the housing.
Not to mention how dumb it makes me feel to feel so defeated by something as simple as a cable lol. And how wrapped up I am getting in trying to get this project taken care of and done and out of the way when I should be finishing the car ( It was only a matter of a week or so away from being ready for the road...but I find the closer to "done" I get...the more crap keeps popping up and screwing with me).
Thanks again guys for the ideas and the help. I was really hoping there was a simple solution I was over looking....but im just baffled on what the heck is going on with it. tomorrow I guess I will try some more trial and error stuff and see if I make any headway. :banghead: