Many of you have been following the Hot Rod Reverend chronicles and know that I replaced my Fordomatic with a 3 speed/OD setup. I have been very happy with the results. With the Holley I installed last year and some of the tuning I have gone through with the Y block this car has really "woken up" so to speak. Wild as it may sound, I just found out this week while tinkering under the hood while the family was in town that the carburetor's butterflies were ONLY GETTING HALF THROTTLE WITH THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL TO THE FLOOR. To be honest, this was something I did not thoroughly check for after switching linkages several years ago. The throttle response was so good even with the Edelbrock, top end was so good, I just assumed that the installation and travel of the pedal all the way through to the carburetor was just fine. I guess I never had anyone sit in the driver's seat with the pedal to the floor so that I could check the full range of motion. 

Dummy me. I have had this thing up to 90 mph on the interstate and have always felt like she had more in her because the accelerator pedal was nowhere near floored, the carburetor very responsive, and the engine was just humming along. Not that I need to go any faster, but I would like to have things operating as they should concerning full travel on the carb butterflies. 

At any rate, I have attached some files of Ford's diagrams that will explain my setup and then also look to find the part(s) I need to get the linkage operating correctly. I have both of Ford's large parts manuals that show both the illustrations and the nomenclature. I have a 56 Ford 4 barrel Fordomatic accelerator assembly attached to a B intake. It looks very similar to this 57 model... 

The difference in the 56/57 parts I believe would be how the Fordomatic kick down rod attaches. For 56 there is a pin that an L shaped bracket fastens and for 57 there is a hole to receive a clevis. At any rate, what I did was to retain this assembly but place a bolt/nut to stop in the slot (indicated by the red circle) so that the assembly could continue to pivot and pull back the rod that attaches to the carb butterflies.

Before I made this switch from auto to manual, this linkage was working just fine while attached to the original 55 pivot at the firewall. Just like this diagram...

Obviously, the original application for the illustration above would be the Holley/Ford 94's (2 barrel, 3 bolt base) that were common on 54-56 Y blocks.

What I believe I need is a different firewall pivot like the one indicated below:

Granted, the above illustration is for a 2 barrel, but I would think that with the different arm off the pivot (which looks to be much longer than what I have currently installed) a rod could be attached to this arm and then to the carb butterflies. 

I did check the part numbers out and as you can see from the listings below, there are different variances on the part number (9725). 

Anyone have that correct pivot? - to the help the Hot Rod Reverend get a little more out of a hot Y block? 

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Have you considered just hooking the carburetor up directly to the firewall bell crank and doing away with that factory pivot assembly?  Here’s a picture of a ’56 Ford with the simplified carb linkage setup.
 

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

You will need to explain the linkage to me Ted; the carb appears to in the idle position and the linkage is against the firewall. I cannot see how the rod can pull the carb arm backwards. What am I missing.

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

Your post got me to question my own linkage.  My TBird was built with a manual transmission and OD. I checked and my carb butterflies are opening all the way.   I suspect the automatic linkage and the manual O/D linkage are different.  Here is a photo of the linkage on my car. 

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There’s some optical illusion going on with that particular picture with the white firewall hiding the required movement of the bell crank.  In reality there’s 2½-3” of room between that bell crank and the firewall allowing the carburetor to go to full throttle when the pedal is depressed all the way to the floor.  Here’s another picture from a different angle.
 

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

When I changed my 54 over from a Fordo to a 4 speed (while doing a 312 switch), I got rid of all the linkage except for the part on the firewall.  I ran a rod from that directly to the carb (an Edelbrock).  I did extend the bar sticking up on the firewall linkage which I think gave me more range of motion.  I had to do something similar to what Ted's picture shows, moving the linkage to carb rod over about the same amount as shown in the picture.

Initially, I was going to use a later Fordo linkage with a bolt at the slotted part, but when I really looked everything over I realized  just using the firewall linkage would do it.


54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

Thanks fellas, looks like I am overthinking this one - I will go ahead and fabricate a bracket that I can use on the original firewall pivot. Looks like a simple rod and spring set up would be all that I would need.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Don't forget to use a spring loaded rod that will allow full throtle and then flex to allow more travel to activate kickdown switch.

Ben HessTulsa,OK

Welp, check out these photos... now I remember why I ended up using the Fordomatic linkage - the pivoting arm sits almost parallel to the ground when the pedal is at "idle" so to speak.

at idle...


and then with the accelerator pedal pushed to the floor...



And here is a link to the video I made...



Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

So far, so good. We have full travel at any rate. If you want the longer version, visit https://www.hotrodreverend.com/post/1955-ford-part-99-wot-wide-open-throttle-on-the-holley-carburetor




Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com