This weeking I want to clean my cars throttle body. It has about 35,000 miles on it. This my first time cleaning the throttle body, how do I go about doing this. What kind of cleaner do I use. What are the benefits besides better mpg, thanks.

 

Get seafoam. All you need to do is turn your car on and let the seafoam go through your intake hose. It's not that hard.

 

Get a can of teflon safe throttle cleaner from Advanced or Autozone. Make sure that it is not carb cleaner, because carb cleaner is not teflon safe.
I use Remoil + Teflon gun lube on the spring and on the throttle rail.

 

Just make sure you remember how to put the intake back together when you're done.

First time I did a cleaning, I forgot to plug a sensor back in and ooo did the engine sound bad..

I think www.motorvate.ca has a write up on the procedure.

 

Bookmark that site. It's an awesome site.

 

Thanks for all your help, ill do it this weekend, it will give me something to do

 

This is a can of TB cleaner from a fuel injestion kit I had laying around in my tool box. As mentioned any TB cleaner will do


This is a pic of the TB before the cleaning. Notice a black carbon ring around the plate


After the TB cleaning, ring is gone


Before


After


Definately one of the easiest maintenance you can do to your engine. I used a old tooth brush with the TB cleaners.

MIKE

 

Did you leave your car on when you were cleaning your TB?

 

NO. That would not be wise. You need to disconnect a few sensors to remove the intake in order to get to the TB.

 

Heard people leaving their car on during cleaning process. They said they were just following direction on the can.

 

How come all the black crap is on the other side of the throttle body. It was hard to get all of it. Im gonna use a toothbrush like you used. What is all that black stuff, smelled like oil.

 

Cars with MAF sensors like ours you can not have the car running, because you have to disconnect all the tubing leading to the TB which includes the MAF sensor. No reading from the MAF = engine no runny. Some cars like Honda's dont have MAF so they can have their engine running while spraying into the TB, but doing it that way will not clean the TB as best as possible.

Bottom line, disconnect all tubing leading towards the TB, open the throttle plates, spray, brush with toothbrush, spray some more, brush some more until you're satisfied it's clean. If you're concern you probably sprayed too much into the motor remove all the spark plugs and crank the motor over for a few seconds.

BTW: Seafoam by itself will not clean the TB. Seafoam is ingested into the motor after the TB.

MIKE

 

All that "black crap" is a common bi-product of most internal combustion engines, it's called carbon. You can't hide from it, you can't completely get rid of it. Was it hard to remove, no it was not.

MIKE

 

If you have over 75k-100k miles on the car and have never cleaned the TB, it would be best to go stop by the dealer first to pick up an extra gasket for between the TB and the Intake manifold. It's about $5.

Now you can completely remove the TB from the intake and clean it from the other side as well.

Removing the TB from the intake manifold will more than likely cause the old gasket to break or fall apart. This is why you need the new one.

Only 4 bolts holding the TB on.

I did this last year and man was there a THICK layer of carbon on the other side of that butterfly valve.

It also lets you clean deeper into the intake manifold.

 

I absolutely dont see the reason to remove the TB in order to clean it. Sure you'll be able to clean further down the upper plenum by 4in. Besides that there's no other reason to remove the TB. The $5 gasket is minumum, sometimes scraping off the old gasket can be a pain, not worth it in my book. With the cleaner and a toothbrush you can clean both sides of the plate and the ID of the TB.

MIKE

 

Possibly, but it's MUCH easier to get it completely clean when you can see the other side.

And it's not that much more work.

Up to the person doing the cleaning..