Throttle body cleaning

[Jim Griffin <JGriff@pobox.com>]

At 01:22 PM 10/28/96 EST, Dan wrote:
>The stock throttle body has a primary butterfly valve that looks to be,
>oh, about 1.25" or so in diameter.  The body leading up to it,
>though, appears to be less than an inch in diameter.
>Schaumburg basically just bores out this restriction so that
>no place in the throttle body is the airflow constricted to
>less than the diameter of the butterfly valve.

While you have some experience now with the throttle body, I feel that maybe
you can help. Fellow listmembers, please respond as well.

As part of normal routine maintenance on all fuel-injected cars that I've
owned (mostly GM), I've cleaned the butterfly valve within the throttle body
with Gumout, by spraying it inside (after removing the hose leading into
it), both with the car running and not. This cleans out a bunch of carbon
build-up on the throttle plate/butterfly valve, and often helps it from
sticking. I've noticed an improvement when I've done this.

I have not yet done this on my '92 100s V-6. I took off the hose leading
into the throttle body, and the butterfly valve is not directly there,
easily accessible. I believe (from memory, I haven't looked in a while) that
there is a small grate there that sorta prohibits access to it. Anyway, all
I remember is that I can't just spray the stuff in there and move the valve
back and forth with my fingers (like I have in the past with my GM cars).

Have you done this? If not, can you enlighten me as to how I might be able
to do this, without taking the whole thing off the car and dismantling it?

Also, I have read/heard somewhere that in some cases, spraying carb cleaner
or such in there where a sensor may be located, may damage the sensor, and
cause problems. Do you know if this would apply to this car/engine?

Should I just dive in head-first, take a gamble, and spray away, hoping the
stuff does it's job, without doing any damage? (And then report the
results.... errr, rather, should I say TRAGEDY, if it fails.....?)

Any thoughts are appreciated. TIA.

(Boy, I wish they would publish a Bentley for the V-6!!)




                             Jim Griffin
                      JGriff@pobox.com
                        Maryland, USA
"Perception is often stronger than reality!"
                               '92 100S
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