Melted accelerator cable - Ford Mondeo Mk. 2 1998

[RBOnline]

Wow. Ok. It appears my accelerator cable has, at some point (likely yesterday) started to melt. It's resting on a metal pipe, as the picture in the Haynes Manual shows is it's default position. However for some reason, this pipe must be getting hotter than it should, and started to melt away the cable.

It's just pure chance that I decided to look underneath the bonnet yesterday after a short drive to my friends house. It appears to have melted through the first, thick(ish) layer of plastic insulation, and started on the second. Because I'm a noob, I decided that I could 'tuck' the cable in between a couple of cool bits of the engine to get the car back home. Obviously this meant the accelerator pedal felt 'heavy' the whole way home.

Any ideas on why it would do this all of a sudden?

(1998 Mondeo Mk. 2 - 2.0 petrol)

Pictures. All here - http://twitpic.com/photos/RossBOnline

http://twitpic.com/4rjp7d/full - That silver pipe is the problem. What is it, and why is it getting so hot? There's nothing in the manual that comes with the car, and I'm still digging through the Haynes Manual to see if I can find it there.

[finlo]

Check your engine to body earth strap, if its snapped the throttle cable will be taking the full starter motor current.

[RBOnline]

finlo said:

Check your engine to body earth strap, if its snapped the throttle cable will be taking the full starter motor current.

Thanks for the reply. But it's definitely the pipe in the pictures that's melting it. You can see the parts of the cable that have melted on to it.

Is it a coolant pipe? Something to do with the brake fluid? I still haven't managed to find that out. It doesn't help that I'm pretty clueless when it comes to engines and stuff!

[oakdale]

That's a power steering pipe and I wouldn't expect it to get hot enough to melt the cable.

I have seen the outer cable worn through on that pipe on Mondeos, is it maybe this in your case?

[RBOnline]

oakdale said:

That's a power steering pipe and I wouldn't expect it to get hot enough to melt the cable.

I have seen the outer cable worn through on that pipe on Mondeos, is it maybe this in your case?

Thanks, it's a relief knowing what it is!

I know someone with the same car, and they finally got around to having a look at their engine yesterday. Turns out they've got exactly the same thing. It appears there was some sort of insulation around the pipe initially, but that's wore off (not surprising giving the age and mileage).

I've simply put some heat resistant insulation tape around the pipe, and it seems to have done the trick.