This was the accelerator control rod - from accelerator linkage to the carburetor. I always thought it was a funny shape, but it worked fine - fully opened and closed the Zenith carb. However, one day I finally noticed that my distributor control rod was unpainted but the throttle control rod and accelerator control rod were black. A quick look at Bratton's catalog showed they should all be unpainted, and STRAIGHT. So I got a new 10 3/4 in long accelerator control rod. Needless to say, it would not fit and bending the arm with the ball on the end of the accelerator linkage would not gain me anywhere near the 1.5 inches difference between the length of the old rod and the new one I finally removed the floorboards and the accelerator linkage. Accelerator linkage looked fine except that the arm with the ball had been bent more than once. I straightened it which made the problem worse. While looking at the linkage, I thought |I noticed a very slight bend in the shaft that runs from the driver side to the passenger side. The bend started where the shaft exits the bushing on the passenger side. It was barely visible, but straightening the shaft fixed the problem. Once the accelerator linkage, now with a straight shaft, was back in the car, the new accelerator control rod fit perfectly. I am guessing that the shaft was bent when the engine was changed who know when. A quick fix was to bend the control to adjust for the bent shaft. After all, one good bend deserves another!
Anyone want a 9 1/4" accelerator control rod?
