Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, March 21, 2001 at 0:03AM :
In Reply to: That Darn Mouse posted by Nathan Taylor on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 at 9:15PM :
Back about 1970 when I was too young to drive, my dad had a '60 T-Bird (that he said he was going to give me when I grew up, but that's another story). It didn't get driven very much and now and then when we looked under the hood we'd see seed husks, grass, shredded paper etc on the top of the engine (a 350 as I recall). One sunny day dad went for a drive on the freeway. Along the way he smelled wood smoke, but thought it was somebody burning brush. When he got near the off-ramp and let up on the gas, nothing happened. He turned off the ignition and she still kept running just the same. It had an automatic tranny, but somehow he managed to brake enough to slow it down until the lack of spark had an effect and the engine eventually stopped. Looked under the hood and found that where the throttle cable went through a plastic sleeve, the plastic had melted and then congealed and stuck the cable in the throttle-open position. We figured that a pack rat had built its nest on the exhaust manifold, the heat of freeway driving had set the nest on fire (hence the smell of wood smoke), the fire had melted the plastic around the throttle cable which congealed after the nest was all burnt up. Besides learning to check for rat's nests, we learned that spark is optional once the engine is going fast enough.
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