How to treat the throttle body?
 

Hi, another noob question!

I want to take of my TB and give it a cleaning...now, opinions vary on this. Do you take the air hose off, gently clean it out with a solvent-soaked rag, and away ya go? Or should you soak it with spray?

I've read/heard that you can toast your TPS if you are too aggressive in there, don't wanna do that! So maybe a hand-wipe, staying away from the TPS, just to make sure the flapper can open/close ok?

The reason I ask is that I have (normally) high idle at cold start....but sometimes it doesn't come down...I have to manually kick the accelerator, and then it comes down fine. Same thing driving, too....come to a stop sign, put clutch in, and it's high-revving until you kick it down, and it stays down fine until you accelerate again.

Causes for this that I've read are:

binding throttle cable (what to lube it with??) or grease/dirt on the plate or linkage,
vacuum leak somewhere (altho nothing changes when I push clutch in or hit brakes)
messed up DP (which I am going to clean and check tomorrow)
dirty throttle body/flapper
TPS

I also have cause to worry about acorns in the TB, lol - found some in the airbox when I changed out the air cleaner!!
So - what are the rules?
Thanks!!

OK try this, remove the dashpot and blow it out and make sure the plunger that the throttle linkage rests on is going up and down and not sticking. Give it a WD 40 squirt, then see how it acts. Mine did just that last week, high idle and not settling down consistently. Good luck

remove throttle body spray the outside w simple green and use a plastic brush if its really dirty, try using small amounts of water from the garden hose to dillute and wash away grease and dirt then if you got a air compressor and a air blower connected blow off the throtle body, then id focus on the inside with a can of throtle body cleaner and mabe even simple green on the inside with water and then the throtle body cleaner and mabe a small brush to clean out the ports. after all is said and done blow the hell out of the whole thing untill you are satisfied. where saftey glasses and dont get any crap in eyes! Good luck!:lof:

oh yeah make sure to wd40 the links and springs and get a nw gasket!

Thanks, guys. I'm gonna assume you need to remove the TPS before you went spraying cleaners in there or soaked it with a hose, huh??

For now, it's DP cleaning/lube time, and I'll see what happens. If I can get her to throttle back when warm without removing the TB, that would be a plus! It's turning winter up here, lol. At least it's mild right now, tho!

Wow! Got the DP out, and it was totally caked with grease. Soaked it in simple green, took a toothbrush to it, and made sure the holes on the bottom were open. Wiped it down, hit it with WD-40, wiped that down, and checked it for 'damping'....seemed ok. I cleaned up the linkage too, and adjusted my throttle cable to be just taut.

Then I took off my distributor cap and checked in there...new wires, but the inside of the cap was carbonized...cleaned it up, and just lightly hit the rotor with VERY fine sandpaper....cleaned out the housing with a clean rag. The vehicle had sat before I bought it....going to replace cap and rotor like you should pretty soon, ha ha.

Verdict: Man, WHAT an improvement! Goes cold idle for 2 mins, then comes down a notch....then comes down again when warm, but most importantly it returns to 'normal' idle when you back off the gas or put the clutch in (800 rpm?). Really nice improvement! Time to do this: 1/2 hour.

My throttle body is pretty dirty, but I dunno if I want to rip it all apart right now (winter is starting tomorrow up here, going to the 20s in the daytime). It can wait for spring.
No acorns in there, though! lol

Thanks for the input, guys! :fork:

Hey everyone, I'm kind of at the same stage with my 89 4runner.

The only difference is that I've had a diagnosis at a Toyota dealership that says my TPS has failed. The truck was sitting for 5 years before I bought it, and the Check Engine light turned on as soon as I drove it on the freeway (!)
I've been driving it for about a week with rather unstable idling patterns (it revs up and down like it's on a bungee cord). I have a brand new TPS that I want to install, but when I started reading the manual and checking out the engine, I found that I was probably going to have to remove the Throttle Body in order to access the bottom screw on the TPS.

Can I simply drain the radiator and temporarily remove the coolant connector that sits directly under the TPS, or do I really have to remove the Throttle Body (and buy more tools, etc)?

Thanks,
-Sage