The black gooey mess may be the fact that the engine is not grounded correctly and is using the throttle cable as a ground which then makes it become sticky.
Check and clean the engine ground as a precaution.

WOW that's a gem of a care worker!

Dan my care worker got it in and changed it in about 5 minutes. I’ve seen guys sit on the road for a couple hours trying to get them in. She made a little wire leash and guided it right in. She got a few stars from me!!!

My back aches in sympathy for you!

Thanks Dan!!

It’s a Mark one Cooper built the end of 1963. I will think about the silicone and some of the other thoughts. After playing with it again last night my thought is number one take the seat out and get a better eyeball on it and two maybe replace it with one i have here as the end is munched now which kind of answers my own question about if I should replace it ??

My preference is to let the weight of the pedal keep tension on the cable so it does not become unhooked from the pedal - a pain to reconnect.

tothefloor:

You mentioned a groaning noise coming from the throttle cable that was reduced by removing a zip tie. Some things to check:

1. Make sure the sheath of the cable is properly seated in the pocket or clip on the carb. If your cable was as loose as you say, the sheath could have slipped out, allowing the core to rub.

2. Where the cable comes through the firewall, there should be a rubber grommet to seal the hole and keep the cable from rubbing on bare metal. If you don't have it, a dab of silicone seal will do nicely.

3. On my car there is a support brace fastened to one of the master cylinder bolts that holds the cable clear of the exhaust manifold and any other hot things. see the attached photo, sorry it is blurry - an old photo.

4. The cable should make a graceful curve from the brace to the carb, with the end of the cable pointing toward the throttle lever without any kinks. If the cable is too long, it is possible to shorten it by pulling the core well back into the sheath past where you need to cut, then cut the sheath using a Dremel or similar fine grinding tool. Maker sure there are no burrs inside. Slide the core back out, assemble the cable to the throttle and fold the excess core where it won't catch on anything, or cut the excess off. Note it may fray, so cut it after assembly and maybe super-glue the strands together before cutting. Silver solder would be better than glue if you have it.

4. Check that you have a good ground between the engine and car body. If your ground is poor, the next best ground is apparently the throttle cable and/or choke cable.

Whenever I have to re-attach the throttle cable to the carb, I jam a piece of 2 x 4 under the throttle pedal to keep it in place-makes it easier to deal with the cable in the engine compartment.

My proofreading sucks but I seriously thought Dan knew what he was talking about and I was the clueless one. I didn’t know if you meant word grabs on where the throttle comes through or what?? As I said I thought I was the clueless one never thought about the strokes and that kind of stuff.

edit: And I dictate most of my stuff and sometimes I don’t even proofread it lol but I think you guys can see that.

HAHAHA! My goof.
With short, thick fingers and thumbs, when I type on my laptop, my thumb sometimes drags across the touchpad and moves things around. Apparently my proof-reading needs to be worked on too!

No worries!

Don't be so critical Mr. tothefloor. Typos do happen. None of us is perfect, including you. In one of your posts you used the word "their" when it should have been "they're".

No, grab the internal part (core) of the throttle cable. Use pliers, locking ones if you have a small pair, so the cable core doesn't slip out of the pinch bolt or come unhooked down at the pedal. Once the pinch bolt is slackened off, you can pull on the core and hear the gas pedal come up to its stop at the proper height.

“Crab throttle return spring”  Huh???

If you have a carburetor (not fuel injection), the throttle cable holds the pedal up using the crab carb throttle return spring. There is no spring on the pedal assembly itself. Go to where the cable is clamped to the throttle lever.  Slacken the pinch bolt (or whatever you have) while gripping the loose end of the cable with pliers. Don't let go!. The sheath of the cable should be seated in the hole it goes into. Pull up on the cable with the pliers and you will take the slack out and pull the pedal up to where it should be. Tighten the pinch-bolt. You should have a tiny bit of slack to allow for idle speed adjustment. To be safe, you could turn back the idle speed screw a couple of turns before adjusting the cable. When it is set, turn the idle screw back to where you had it.

Fuel injection probably has something similar.

1. I adjusted the clutch but found that I was having a hard time getting it into gear. So I bled the clutch. Then I felt like the brakes weren’t as tight so I bled those two. But I was still having problems so I looked at the throttle cable and realized I was getting some strange groaning type noises. I un-hooked the throttle Cable from where I had it zip tied and the problem went away but then in a while the problem came back just a grown from the throttle cable. Is there anything I can do or do I just need to change the throttle cable??  I took it for a ride last night but I had to hold The gas pedal up with a bungee cord to hold the throttle up a little bit when I took my foot off the gas. Again do I need to change the throttle cable?? The gas pedal does not come all the way up real quickly when I take my foot off the gas. There was quite a mess down there was something that look like tar I try to get it off as that could’ve been holding the pedal from swinging back up but??