The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop HELP! 1959 Chevy V8 Throttle linkage issue

Hey folks. Im having the dickens trying to get a working throttle linkage for my truck. (Truck details: 1959 Chevy cab, 1956 front clip, sitting on a 1978 Chevy shortbed 4x4 cassis, 400 sbc V8 with 4bbl carb/700R4.)
I just spent $60 for brand new throttle linkage for the 55-59 chevy trucks. Does not fit the firewall to work properly. In fact it doesnt work at all! Ive tried to get other linkages to work but i cant get it to work with the carb to utalize its full potential.

What linkage have you used to work with your truck with a V8 w/ 4bbl carb? Using the stock 1958-1959 Gas peddal,....

The after market linkage kit does not work the way it comes out of the box. You have to disasemble it & scratch your head a little & figure it out. It can be frustrating but I have finally goten them to work.

Is it possable to get some pictures? please?

does this one help? I could get some more, but like George says, you need to fiddle a bit to get it in the right configuration

Bill

Thanks for the photo. ive fiddled with it a lot. If possable can you get a shot where its bolted to the firewall? thats my biggest issue.

best I can do, there should be factory holes where it's attached, straight behind the carb as shown .... of course that's with the engine in the stock position, how your newer chassis positions things may have those holes in a poor alignment to the engine, in which case you may need to go to a cable arrangement

Bill

I had to remove the pivot bolt, and reverse the linkage for the kit to mount to the fire wall.

Then I put the pedal rod through the floor to the accelerator pedal, and them positioned the bracket where the pedal would work and the linkage would move.

I had to drill holes for the bolt then, some have had the holes already in the firewall with the nut welded in place.

I can get some pictures tomorrow if no one else has any better shots.

There's a detail of it in the Assembly Manual...RPO-408 Sheet 8.00 at the back of the book under "V8 Engine Instruction".

Mike B

I see the factory holes. I tried mounting it to those and it offset the linkage . Binds up all the linkage . I guess I will try again to see if I can bend a few things and rearrange some stuff. Pretty lousy setup for $60.

it's actually a perfect reproduction of what the factory used, and fits perfectly on my truck and a couple others I've put it on - make sure you have the vertical piece with the offset on the right side and try both directions of inserting the threaded rod into it .... as I said above, if it can't be arranged to fit your application well, it's your setup that's the problem, not the linkage - it could be you have a much wider carb than anything it was intended for

Bill

On just about anything that is not stock I use a cable. You can use a Lokar which is darn good but I'm cheap so I get one off a Ford from the 80's and probably other years. The Ford uses a round hole in the firewall instead of the much harder to make square one GM uses and the Ford cable has the return spring built into the cable. Car manufacturers did away with the old rods and pivots decades ago.

I've always used the factory cable and pedal set ups from the 70's era trucks. The pedal mounts by simply drilling three holes in the firewall and screwing it down. Where the hole for the cable meets the firewall I drill a big hole and square it up with a file until the original cable snaps into it. Done, should be able to knock this mod out in less than an hour,
Scott

When I first mounted my kit, it made the linkage go off to one side.

I took the pivot bolt out, and turned the mount over. Then the link pointed the right direction.

Someone had just put the link on the bracket wrong.

May not be your problem, but might look at flipping the bracket around.

Well I think I got it to work. I took some pictures if anyone is interested. I pretty much had to bend each end about 40 degrees so the rods line up strait.