Since this remotely may interest someone who has and E30 automatic, the cable simply became unattached in the transmission. It can be re-attached by removing the pan of the tranny and looking near the shift entry spot of the tranny. We were able to reconnect the cable using a dental tool and a small flat head screw driver. The connection spot for the cable end is circular and has a groove on the circumference. This "valve" end rotates clockwise when the accelerator is pressed. You can rotate this valve using the screw driver and it will "lock" into a spot which allows the cable to be maneuvered into place on the valve. The end of the cable has a cylinder of metal which slides into a hole on this valve. We gave slack on the cable by loosening (not disconnecting) it on the top of the engine. Once the cable is in place, and this is a struggle to get the cable onto the circumference and get the cable end cylinder into the hole of the valve, we move the valve to become unlocked.
If the cable is busted the procedure is the same but you will have the fiddle with removing the old cable and inserting and screwing in the new cable at the entry point of the tranny. I did not need to do this but I had purchased a cable just in case we needed one and by looking at the cable it seemed straight forward to do except for the tight spot to work in.
There is a specification for the cable on top of the engine. There is a "stop" on the cable that will come close to hitting the adjustable sleeve that is nutted on to the engine bracket. This adjustable mount should be set to about .5mm of gap between the stop and the mounting sleeve. When the accelerator is pressed to the floor the gap should be about 42mm. Check the Bently manual as I may have these wrong off the top of my head.
I have read that people can adjust for a bigger gap and force the tranny to shift at a higher RPM, but I have not tested this but it seems like it would work.
