Hey all. I haven't had my 2004 Explorer very long - about 3 months now, and one thing that annoys me is the throttle lag - which is really a lack of delicate throttle (pedal) control. Having owned a number of fords over the years where the accelerator (gas) pedal is hinged and uses a spring, and knowing the Explorer pedal is not hinged on the accelerator shaft - it is fixed - I thought I'd remove the accelerator assembly from the truck, and have a go at "fixing" it. The results are very, very good, and the cost was nil. Read on if you want to know how I did it:
1. Undo the 3 x 11mm (7/16" ??) nuts that hold the pedal assembly in the truck. Unclip the electrics, and remove complete pedal assembly from the vehicle.
2. The pedal is attached to the shaft using two large "toothed" rivets/pins. I put the assembly in a vice, and using a punch and a hammer, carefully (not really - more like brute strength), knocked/belted out the pins.
3. I then used a 4mm (approx 5/32") bolt and matching nyloc nut, with a washer each side, to hinge the pedal using the bottom holes of the pedal and the shaft (drilled "round" to match the 4mm diameter of the bolt), and also installed a "torsion spring" - the hinge bolt holds the spring in, and I had to drill a small hole in the plastic of the pedal backing and also one in the shaft to hold each end of the torsion spring in place.
The spring I used is like the one at the bottom left of the picture below. Don't laugh, but it actually used to perform duties in a set of BBQ tongs that died last week; it was the rescuing of the spring from the broken tongs that got me thinking about how I could use it for the Explorer pedal. OK, now you may laugh. At some stage, I will go to the local wreckers/car parts recyclers, and source an actual torsion spring used on a Ford accelerator pedal setup.
The throttle is now far more sensitive and easier to use. A small amount of pressure on the pedal, now moves the pedal towards the flat (factory) position against the shaft, and the spring in turn forces the shaft to move quite slowly, but the overall effect is that the truck is no longer in a state of either stopped, or moving at full tilt - it now moves off the line quite sedately, and it is actually easier to get it moving. If you want to accelerate hard, then that is also easier to do, as you just apply more pressure to the pedal. I had previously found that to move off quickly required some finesse with your foot and the pedal, as the throttle always seem to be all or nothing. The new arrangement means you just squeeze the pedal, and the spring makes it a more linear progression from stopped to moving. Hard to explain, but if you hate the way the Explorer accelerator works, then this small mod is for you.
I have read of a few different ways to get around the throttle lag on the Explorer, and the most effective ones seem to be by removing find/vanes from the inside of the Throttle Body in the intake - this may result in smoother airflow, but I don't see how it can fix the lag which is actually a result of a poorly designed and executed accelerator pedal. Hinging the pedal and using a spring actually changes (for the better) the way the accelerator pedal works.
If you try this and don't like the way it performs, all you need to do is either put in the original pin in the upper hole in the pedal and shaft, or use a bolt and nyloc nut in those same holes to go back to a "fixed" pedal setup. I doubt you'll go back though.
