Removing e46 Throttle Pedal

[Manolito]

There are several sets of instructions and even a YouTube video or two on how to remove this throttle pedal. After reviewing all I could find, I was frustrated that I still did not have a clear idea of how to get this thing apart without breaking it.

I needed to swap throttle pedals between my 325 and the wife's 330 to see if that was the cause of my intermittant drive-by-wire system failure on the 325, so I took some pictures of how it looks when apart so you will understand better than I did how to dismantle it.



The most important thing to see is the white plastic part that bolts to the floor. The throttle pedal assembly slides sideways into this piece until the latch snaps to secure it. Notice two things on this part: 1) The latch, which is the part to the left of where you see the plug dangling. You have to press it down about 1/4 inch so that it will disengage from the pedal assembly and allow the assembly to slide off. 2) Hard to see in this picture, but the right-hand edge of the white plastic piece is about a 3/4" high lip. When you grasp the throttle pedal assembly to try to slide it to the left, your fingertips are on this white plastic lip (which you cannot see with the throttle assembly in place). This part is bolted to the floor, so it ain't movin, no matter how hard you pull. You must grasp the throttle assembly ABOVE this white plastic lip. It is a pretty narrow area to grasp, but once it starts to move, you can easily feel the part that is moving and leaving the white plastic part behind.

The next thing you need to see are the two rows of detents that the latch catches on.


The first row has two detents side-by-side. The second row is a single detent centered between the front row pair. Releasing the catch from the first row is relatively easy. Releasing the catch from the second row detent, after you have slid the throttle assembly over 3/4" and the white latch is no longer visible, is a little tougher.

To release the latch, you need a flat blade screwdriver. Any size will work for the first row of detents. For the second row, it will be easier if you use a screwdriver that is narrow enough to fit between the two first row detents



The throttle assembly engages the white plastic part at two slides: One right above the catch, and the other down at the heel of the throttle pedal. They fit tight and the plastic is not very smooth, so while depressing the latch with your screwdriver, you have to tug and jiggle the throttle assembly a bit to get it to slide sideways off the white plastic part.

One of the sets of instructions that I read said that you should replace the white plastic part every time you remove the throttle assembly. This is because BMW knows that after 8-10 years, their recyclable plastic gets quite brittle. You might crack the plastic latch while removing the assembly such that it breaks off completely at some future date.

Because of all the bad Karma you have accrued through your lifetime of transgressions, this will happen right after you heel-and-toe through Turn #1, and are hurtling toward Turn #2 (aka "The Widowmaker") at the speed of sound when you realize that your throttle assembly has come loose and rolled over beneath the brake pedal, where it is stuck at half throttle. Pressing the brake pedal only further depresses the throttle without engaging the brake.

To avoid this unhappy outcome, or to repair the assembly if you break off the latch, as I did one of mine, you can drill a hole in the throttle assembly just uphill from the latch, and install a sheet metal screw a half inch long or so that screws into the white plastic part. This last picture shows the head of the screw with a washer. Sorry that the glare obliterates the detail. It looks a little cobbled up, but no one will ever notice it unless they have their head under your dash. The option is to buy a new white plastic part.



BTW - the throttle assembly for the automatic is a different part number from the one for the stick shift. They are, however, interchangable. The difference is that the one for the automatic has a mechanical clicker inside to warn the driver of the throttle position where the computer may downshift the transmission. It is not connected electronically to the computer, it is just a mechanical clicker. An unexpected downshift, if it happens in a curve, is a bad thing unless you don't mind re-arranging the hay bales with your car.