Thanks to everybody for the great advice.
Fatmobile, you are exactly right, that is that piece. I had a good look at my pump on my 1.5 and figured out that whoever rebuilt my new pump (at bosch) didn't properly re-assemble the whole throttle lever. It is supposed to be progressivly sprung, with the top spring doing most of the work at first. With the way they've got it together, the bottom spring does all of the work, all of the time, and the top spring gets a free ride. Consequently, that lower lever thing is not where it is supposed to be, and was interfering until I modified it. As the single spring is working just fine I'll probably just run it for a bit as is. I can't see that it would do any harm unless the bottom spring broke, then I'd have a stuck throttle condition. Maybe that is why they used 2 springs for redundancy? Or just increased resistance? Anyhow on the rare chance that it should break, I guess I'll just do the old shut-the-key- off trick.
fspGTD, yep, this pump came with my rebuilt engine. Not sure what it was off originaly but I think when I asked the lift spec was like .86mm which is different than any of the '84 and earlier specs. I'd have to look again though. My old 1.6 and pump are long gone, at a friends house, and this 1.5 had the 1.15mm 'yellow dot' pump. It has the same spring setup as this new pump
Noose is safety wire but I think in this case it is more a factory preventative to keep people from messing with it. It has the little stamped piece of metal (seal) on the wire. Anything other than adjusting the idle screw voids the warranty, the max rpm is wired up too. They have blue paint on every screw and bolt as well, so they know if it's been messed with I guess.
Thanks again for all the help.