Accelerator Cable or Throttle Body?

[Phil and Judy Rose]

At 2:01 AM -0500 5/1/05, Brice Warnick wrote:
>I let my brother-in-law drive my car last week and told him to not be
>afraid to tromp the pedal. He did and the engine revved out of control.
>I turned the key off and found that the little square black plastic
>piece at the end of the accelerator cable had a piece broke off. I was
>able to nestle it back under and it has only came off again once.
>I ordered a new cable a few days ago.
>Is the little square black plastic piece attached to the end of the
>cable or is it part of the throttle body? It appears to be at the end of
>the cable but I am not quite sure. I guess I will know for sure when the
>cable arrives on Monday.  The cable was only $56.00 from the local
>dealer.

Brice,
No! It's _not_ attached to the end of the cable! It's molded around 
the small metal protrusion at the end of the throttle lever 
(actuator).  A very bad design---like most of Audi's plastic 
components. Cancel your order for that cable--you're throwing away 
"only" $56. The problem with the throttle mechanism and can be easily 
fixed--I use a couple of tight twists of baling wire (plus a small 
nylon cable-tie for good measure). It helped that I still had the 
broken plastic pieces and the clip.  That repair has worked fine for 
at least 4 years (and  a lot of hard throttle-tromping).

An alternative that I've heard someone describe involves drilling a 
couple of small holes through the sides of the actuator and inserting 
a metal rod which then act to restrain/retain the the cable end. 
AFAIK, the throttle bodies from other (more common) Audi models 
cannot be used as a substitute, unfortunately. A new '91 200q 
throttle body was something like $600, IIRC.

Phil
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*  Phil & Judy Rose           Rochester, NY  *      
*        mailto:pjrose at frontiernet.net       *
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