Actually, this is a fird question. My son drives a '92 Tempo and sometimes when it's cold the throttle locks up at idle and he can't press the pedal down. I tried cleaning it with carb cleaner, and it helped a little but it still does it. I'm worried that it'll do that when he's left turning in the middle of an intersection or something........not too safe. It seems to me like the vacuum at idle is sucking the throttle plates closed. The cable seems OK and I'd think if the Throttle Sensor was binding it would have broke when he forced the pedal down. The check engine light does not come on. Am I far off base or could something else be causing this? :bglasses:
My mom had an 89 Cutlass Cierra. Once I floored it, and the pedal stuck. (Turn off ignition, pull pedal back - no big deal.) Anyway, I learned on that particular car the throttle body tended to wear and do that. Anything that rubs will wear down. I think it was a design flaw, though - it should wear in a way that doesn't cause it to lock. Not sure if this relates to your problem, but yes, they can wear out.
On my old Holley Projection, the throttle shafts wore a hole in the TB so much that the shafts would bind (causing a very high idle sometimes) and leaking air. That's another reason I am not a fan of the Holley FI- it is too "value engineered" IMO. -Bob Cunningham
I had the same thing happen on my K5, it was an 87 with a TBI 350. Throttle was seized solid after a summer of sitting (it was my winter ride) turned out that it was the throttle cable. it got stuck in there. You should take some sand paper to the throttle bore, and the valve. I'd smooth out the edges and some of rough spots..
