[highcking]

Jim - you’re right. See the attached picture. I stuck a piece of hose to block the kick down pin from sliding around. Car runs fine, plenty of power. Long term, I think a return spring in that area is supposed to keep tension on the linkage and it’s gotten weak after 63 years. (My Town Sedan is an original car with mileage in the 50s.) I’ll take it off and locate a substitute with more tension.

It’s amazing how this issue masqueraded as either a carb or distributor problem. If you moved the throttle lever at the carb by hand, everything did what it’s supposed to. But if you operated the throttle from inside the car ... my wife reported the throttle stopped moving and I was still pushing down! We reversed roles and I saw immediately what was happening.

Thanks to all respondents. I learned a lot of interesting things and found a problem that can’t be unique to my car.

Bill in Luray