VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions 1940 Chevy hand throttle-what is the purpose?

I recently purchased a 1940 Master Deluxe, about 95% original, and I'm currently doing some rewiring to make it safer and more functional. I took the dash apart to do some repainting along with the rewiring and got to wondering about the hand throttle. The guy I bought it from called it "the original cruise control". I can see how that might be, but it seems awful unsafe if you had to stop quickly (relatively speaking of course!) and forgot to push it back in. So...what is the purpose of this cable?

I sometimes use it for a faster idle while warming up after a cold start.

I sometimes use it to put the engine on fast idle to aid in keeping the engine cool in a parade on a hot day It has been used as a"cruise control", probably safer back in the days of very light traffic on rural highways. Definately would be regarded as unsafe today!

It also helps you unload one if you have flooded the motor. You can open the throttle wide and use your foot on the starter pedal.

Dave

I have heard it is a crude cruise control for the purpose of maintaining a fixed speed on bumpy roads or driving in fields where the bumps would cause you to bounce up and down on the gas pedal causing a lurching.

I have experienced this on bumpy roads with my daily drivers at low speeds and I often hit a point where the lurch gets worse and worse to the point where I have to stop in order to stop the up and down motion of the car and my foot. It's really annoying. I have it happen at work every day in the parking lot..

I sometimes use it for starting on a hill when my third foot isn’t handy

Lot of opinion here.

I think it is simply there to give one the ability of changing engine revolutions from the cabin. For whatever purpose. Cosmetically, it balanced out the choke on the dash, also.

Best,

Charlie

My understanding is that the primary purpose of the hand throttle was to provide the capability for a "fast idle" when starting a cold engine. There was no "fast idle" linkage activated by setting the choke on the carburetor until starting in the late 40's.

Hand throttles started disappearing in the early 50's.

If you have a hand control choke, you need to add throttle when using the choke. It is also useful for starting on hills.

My oddball car has an automatic choke and a fast idle cam on the choke mechanism and it also has the hand throttle. This is all original equipment.

Curiosity made me dig out the owners manual. Under "Hand Throttle" it referred to the starting page. On the starting page it talked about everything now being totally automatic and no user touching of a choke or throttle was necessary lol.

So it seems that maybe indeed it was to control fast idle when using a manual choke and maybe had just not been removed on my model as it had become a standard feature since people used it for various purposes as we are finding...