Accelerator pedal spring badness

Ok, hauling butt because it was beautiful out today and floored it for the pure pleasure. Well, when I let up on the pedal it didn’t do anything. Hard brake, tapping pedal and final got the beast slowed down but idle was 1500 rpm.

Side of the road troubleshooting and finally figured out it looks like the pedal return spring did something bad.

Gonna research and stuff, but like to post for quick thoughts, etc…

Now the badness…

Did it break or just come loose somehow?

Looks like the pedal shaft has moved out slightly to the left. Is it splined to a lever or similar on the engine bay side? Just might be as simple as pushing the shaft back toward the engine bay and reclamping, although I am not personally familiar with the exact setup.

Looks like the bushings disintegrated and the pedal was cocked on the pivot shaft.

Hi Jeff, Unfortunately ,your return spring has broken. The photo shows how it is supposed to look. (My pedal has been reinforced).
You could fabricate something yourself, or look for a new spring- the part no is C 24689.

$3.00 on e-bay. $4.00 shipping- Ha Ha! (Edit.)

2 bucks at everydayxj. Not sure about his shipping.
Abd as Jon says, I would look to replace the bushings at same time.

For the XJS the part number is C 46063. Probably works the same as the XJ, but might feel different depending on the coils and torque…

I ordered some torsion springs from McMaster-Carr to try and fabricate - never know when NLA pops up for these things :slight_smile: Plus, those will be here in a couple days versus ??? if I order from SNG or such.

I don’t see any bushings in my assembly - closest things are the bearing pivots which look to be plastic and might need replacing, not sure, but will check.

Ahhh… the obligatory pic…

I doubt the spring broke. Its probably just come out due to bad bushing (bearing pivot).
If I recall, the whole thing needs to fit tightly, or else the spring can easily pop out.

The straight spring leg definitely snapped off. Haven’t found the leg yet. You can maybe see the sharded metal in the spring where the leg js supposed to be - circled in green in the pic…

I’ll shoot a better pic when I take it off.

Common failure on xjs clutch pedal return springs which are same design just heavier. Given that they seem to break in the middle of the coils like that, I think it’s just poor metallurgy/fatigue.

There should be a circlip keeping everything located at the end of the shaft. My picture shows it. Is it still around somewhere? Your photo suggests it isn’t there.

Taking the bracket that holds the accelerator pedal assembly together was pretty easy, EXCEPT for the fact that I had 3 bolts holding the assembly in place and not 2 like the ROM and Parts Catalog show. And it was tucked up under the cross pipe, so almost impossible to actually see let alone get a #3 pozi in on to loosen. I took a guess that there as a bolt there and felt around with my big screwdriver, and sure enough, out comes the 3rd one (of course I’ll have pics!!)

Ordered a couple of 3/4" ID torsion springs from McMaster-Carr, because I didn’t want to wait for weeks to get one shipped from overseas.

The first one I snapped like an idiot trying to do a small adjustment when the metal was cold. The second one shaped pretty easily as long as you don’t muck with things cold. Temper it in the oven, slow-up, slow-down, at 500 degrees for about 30 minutes (overall takes about 2 hours to heat up and cool down) and the music wire gets it’s durability back.

Then, you’ve gotta cut about 2" off the leg so it fits nice in the bracket that attaches the whole assembly up in the foot well.

Probably overkill, but for $12 got a lift-time supply of Side-Mount External Retaining Rings for 3/8" OD, Zinc Yellow-Chromate-Plated Spring Steel - better than spending $2 on getting just 2 of those things from your big box hardware store.

I also went with Black-Oxide Alloy Steel Flanged Button Head Screw 1/4"-28 Thread, 3/4" Long to see if those would be easier to get to without worrying about stripping out as the pozi screws have.

Yep, yep, too much talkie, talkie… pics


^^^ 3 screws, not 2 like the ROM says


^^^ 3rd screw behind the cross-member


^^^ Leg broke off original torsion spring


^^^ 3/4" Torsion Spring with 3" legs fits pretty close


^^^ Failed first attempt - tried bending leg just a little bit after heating to red hot


^^^ Torsion Sprint fitted to accelerator pedal


^^^ Torsion Sprint fitted to accelerator pedal


^^^ Torsion Sprint fitted to accelerator pedal


^^^ All the pieces of the accelerator pedal assembly


^^^ Torsion spring leg will interfere with bolts if leg is too long


^^^ Accelerator pedal assembly ready to go

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Looks good. Nice work!