Tightening throttle cable, help?!?!

Ok, first of all I am machanically challenge but I like a challenge. I have a '96 Tacoma 2.7L and I notice the throttle cable is loose. I tried tighten them as far as I can by loosening and moving the nuts around but there's still a lot of slack. What else can I do to tighten up the cable. Does it need to be replace due to it being a old truck and the cable stretch.

 

Loosen and move nut as far as I can, still slack.

 

It is SUPPOSED to have slack. The question is, if someone stands on the accelerator, can you turn the butterfly any further or is it wide-open? If it is not wide open, you need to adjust. Otherwise, no. You might have an accelerator pedal spring that has broken or slipped off, however.

 

That cable is the tranny shift-down cable, not the throttle cable. It probably broken and needs to be replaced. Trace it down to the tranny and see if you can see the problem at the other end.

 

I followed the cable down and dont see anything wrong unless I lost down there when it got hard to see.

 

This might be a dumb question but is one of them a throttle cable and the other accelerator cable?

 

You should get a Haynes repair manual for your truck and start reading it, if you are going to be doing your own work.

Back to your question.
Throttle cable = accelerator cable
The upper cable in your photo is the throttle cable. Trace it back, and it will go to the fire-wall (verticle steel barrier between the engine compartment and the cabin) and then to the accelerator/throttle/skinny pedal. If you have cruise control, then that cable will go to the CC actuator under the hood, which is connected to the gas pedal.

The lower cable in the photo connects to the automatic transmission, so that when you 'stomp on it' the transmission knows to down-shift. Later models don't have this, and rely on the computer when to downshift