Stiff pedal with kickdown hooked up. Help please!

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fishy68 said:
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.
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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:
 
Your description of the lever resistance sounds about right, but your description of the resistance of the gas peddle does not match what you are feeling at the trans lever.
But yet you say the cables are free and all. Hm
That's a poser for sure, but I bet you'll find it.


xMOPARx said:
I dont believe it to be an issue with the valve body as I just had it apart to install the tf-2 kit not long back and everything looked great and I was very precise with following the instructions to a T and everything went together as it should.

if anything I could believe what fishy68 mentioned with it being a stiffer spring rather than an actual issue or failure.

as I mentioned though, I can get under the car and manually move the kick down lever by hand...it has tension on it...spring loaded tension....doesnt bind or anything like that. it feels asthough it has about as much tension as you would feel on a carburators linkage when moving it by hand.

my issue is....I dont have another trans laying around to compare the tension to.....I dont know if the tension that I am feeling is "normal tension" or to stiff or?.

I appreciate the ideas though and I will keep them in mind...but before I go ripping the pan and valve body off I want to get some more ideas on things to check....if I still cant get it figured out then I will dig deeper into what the problem is.
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yup, thats what im not getting....everything unhooked from carb and the carb linkage itself moves freely with ease. move just the gas pedal with nothing hooked to it and it flops around with no resistance. move the throttle pressure lever at trans with nothing hooked to it and it feels to have about the same or slightly more resistance than that of my carburetor linkage (maybe as much resistance as my carb linkage would have with one spring on it but still not a labor to push it by hand really.....I can push it with 2 fingers). Move just the cables inside of their housings and they move freely. Hook throttle cable up to carb and I can pump the gas pedal and it feels normal. hook one or 2 springs to it and it still feels normal with just a little added foot pressure needed. But add the kick down cable into the mix (springs or no springs even) and its ridiculously stiff.

I know....after all that....it would sound like cable. but I have tried 2 new cables, both of which are routed correctly and without bends or anything.

mind boggeling to say the least lol. Ill get some pictures from under the car tomorrow and post them up for you guys too see.

Thanks again for the input guys.
 
Don't overlook the possibility that it could be drag resistance like was mentioned.
I know motorcycle cables can bind pretty bad from drag, so why not a cable on a car right?

A quick shot of almost any light oil should answer that question in a hurry.
But also as mentioned already, graphite would be best for the long haul.
 
That may have worked for trouble shooting the throttle but for the length and the bend needed to make the agle to the kick down lever I don't think it wod work and I don't want to ruin my cable trying it lol.

I may however try some sort of bailing twine or something and see what I can't come up with!.

I plan to try a few things to day and hopefully come to some sort of conclusion. I'll be sure to let you guys know if I figure anything out
 
I have lokar cables on my 318 904 has hard petal also tried everything you did still same ive been driving it like this!!
 

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Use compressed air to blow the lube down the cable.
It's kind of a pain but it works. (even WD 40 would answer the question)
WD 40 dries up too, so the cable wouldn't be all oily and nasty forever.

If this is what is wrong then Lokar needs to address that when they manufacture thier cables.
 
I messed with the duster some more today guys. I played around with the routing of it....adjustments,connection, checkec everything again (all hooked up and again all unhooked) and still was baffled at why it felt the way it did.

I then took a bunch of pictures aswell as some video in preperation to share on the thread. And then right before I called it a night I remembered what fishy68 and trailbeast had posted about lubing the cable. ( I had already sprayed some kroil down the line once before trying to see if it would help....but apparently not well enough) this time I disconnected the cable from the bracket and aimed it in the air so that gravity would pull the fluid down and I sprayed a liberal amount. I then hooked it back up and checked it again and there was a HUGE difference in how the pedal felt!!!! .....its still a TAD stiffer than I like but im still not confident that the spray made it down the entire length of the cable. so I am going to do as suggested and pick up some graphite spray and do the compressed air trick as mentioned to make sure it makes its way all the way down the cable.

Thanks to those who chimed in with ideas and thanks a ton too the two of you that I mentioned above.....I am just glad I wasnt to stubborn to give the spray a second try or id still be chasing my tail HAHAHA.

the cable felt nice and free when moved by hand but things must have tightened up under a load when hooked to the linkage.

Thanks again guys.....I just hope that if anyone else runs into a similar problem that they stumble on this thread first before going through all the dinking around I did before narrowing down the problem.
 
another thing you could try is this. I noticed on mine that the outer sleeve is flimsy really has no strength to it. maybe try swapping out that for the black style like stock that has holds it shape better. Perhaps its pushing against the outer sleeve because it doesnt have as much strength to hold its shape? I noticed the motorcycle cable i used was more rigid then the plastic tube and SS braid stuff.
 
Glad to hear you made some progress Xmopar. I noticed it helped mine quite a bit too. And it is when their under a load where you see the big difference with a well lubed cable.
 
xMOPARx said:
Thanks again guys.....I just hope that if anyone else runs into a similar problem that they stumble on this thread first before going through all the drinking around I did before narrowing down the problem.
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Glad you found the issue.
All you have to do now is solve it for the long term.

I hope it didn't cause too much strain on your health, as I know for a fact that "drinking around" isn't very good for you.

I fixed the "r" you left out.
No thanks needed :D
 
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