On Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:19:32 -0500, Tony
wrote:

I had an experience with a stuck throttle one time. It was on my 55
chevy Bel Air (2door hardtop) :-) . I had it floored in 4th gear and
the flat back road was getting to the bumpy section and I let off the
throttle. It stayed at full throttle. First instinct was to pound on
the throttle a couple times to see if it would release. No good.
Second was to stand on the brakes, well the car was sitting to long and
just when I needed brakes the most, the pedal went to the floor! No
brakes! Next I turned off the ignition and it started slowing down but
still to fast for the upcoming road. I pumped the brakes and the master
cylinder came to life and the car stopped. My buddy following me
finally catches up and runs up to start beating at the open headers to
put out the fire underneath me that I didn't know about. He said that
when I turned off the ignition it looked like the Batmobile with flames
coming out the back. I suppose the gas from the wide open 4 barrel was
ignighting in the hot headers? I unstuck the throttle linkage at the
carb and drove the rest of the way without going past half throttle.

Good one. It was easy to fix linkage at the carb in those days. On
other rare occasions there might be a damaged rubber grommet at the
gas pedal for other cars models?

We *needed* fire one day to light cigarettes. Stuck 20 miles in a
swamp in a Model A Ford. Okay, dip a rag in gas, pull muffler, run the
engine and turn off the key. Turn it on again and the backfire flame
from the exhaust lit the rag.

We could have blown the piston top (S) off :-/

Those were the days..