I removed the cable, ‘home made’ linkage on the inlet manifold, and the gubbins on the side of the plenum, then found a couple of suitable bolts and fitted them into the now missing bolts on the manifold.
When I rebuilt Sparky, I had the engine out for a while. This is a pic from back then and shows the bracket forming the front part of the throttle linkage.
So I thought if I just bolted it back on, it would line up with the bracket on the steering idler and I would have a sound base to construct a neater, more direct throttle. But no, that would be too easy; it just would not bolt back on. I knew I had the pic above somewhere so found it out and yes, I was trying to fit it correctly? Now it didn’t help as it was down the back of the engine and difficult to get to, but it should still bolt back on – it just wouldn’t. After a lot of head scratching and mumbling, I discovered that the EFI inlet manifold had a slightly larger footprint than the old four barrel mani, and overhanged at the back by some ¼”. This was in the way of the bracket. I tried using a ¼” spacer but then the front hole wouldn’t line up, and as it had already been modified by the previous owner I didn’t bother with messing around with it even more, just made up a new bit. This is held on by two bolts on the back of the cylinder head. The mani overhang is obvious in this pic. I did notice that the original bracket has a 3 degree “allowance” on it to line it up with the rear bracket, as the engine sits slightly down hill at the back. So I had to build in a 3 degree bend in my new bracket.
The accelerator shaft is an Auto one, which Sparky started out as. It’s not long enough for what I am looking to do, so I have scouted around trying to find one from the manual car which is a lot longer. If I push this one back far enough to get a split pin in behind the steering idler bracket, the forward end is flush with the nylon bush. There is nothing to stop it moving forward so I do need that split pin. I found a shaft on ebay at £21.20 and one from a P6 supplier at nearly £30, so just bought a 5/16 shaft from ebay at £2.99 and made one up. I used the crank from the original, then tacked it on, cut it to length, and was away.
The nylon bush is the original one but there is nothing to stop it working its way out and possibly jamming something up, so I drilled a couple of holes through a washer, the bush and the bracket. Two small bolts will hold that in place.
I found the plastic/nylon top of the throttle push rod, screwed it on, then connected it up to find that it’s around an inch too short. At first I thought it may be the PO who modified it (chopped an inch off the end) but it may have been me when I made the linkage for the weber. I bought a short length of studding thinking that I could just screw the top onto that and somehow fix the lower cup onto it as well. But no, I had bought a stud with 24TPI and needed 32TPI. I just welded it onto the original bit and then cut it to length. It didn’t take much to break it though as there is very little to weld to, and I am not an expert welder. So plan B – cut a bit off the original, weld the new studding on again, then clean the weld, slide a piece of steel tube and weld both ends of that.
This is nothing like as easy as I was hoping it would be
When I was under the bonnet, I have been spurned into cleaning out the steering idler by another post on here. The oil on the top was clean and seemed quite new, but on dismantling I found thick grey sludge at the bottom. So I gave it all a good clean, including the little ball bearing valves, then refilled with fresh EP90 and put it all back together.