Original symptoms: Car will not idle upon starting, and gear changes were forceful when driving. Got comp code, identified problem as TPS.

Ordered TPS, replaced. Drove without adjusting, car idled fine now but the acceleration went up and down while driving (like a wave)

Realized I needed to adjust, tried to follow Haynes procedure (using feeler gauges and checking for continuity across the throttle open/closed pins).

The problem is that it says to put the feeler gauge in between the throttle stop screw and throttle lever. Looking at the throttle body, I see the screw and lever, problem is that they do not touch, regardless of how I position the TPS. Instead the movement is stopped by the lower part of the arm, the pin on the lower part hits a stop before the upper part is allowed to contact the throttle stop screw, thus the feeler gauges cannot be used.

Thoughts?

 

Unplug the sensor start the car....once it calms down adjust the lil adjuster screw to about 850 rpms...shut the car off plug sensor back in..........I am pretty sure thats how u do it....but again i could be wrong and u can slap me if i am

 

To clarify:

Unplug the sensor - you mean the Wide Open / Wide Closed sensor (orange)?

Adjust the screw - you mean the throttle stop screw?

The manual was pretty clear that this should not need adjustment, but it certainly looks like it needs adjusting. To be clear, this should be stopping the throttle arm, not the lower pin, right?

 

bump

If someone could at least answer the throttle stop screw Q, it would be very helpful

 

the screw is on top of the IACV. The tps is adjusted by moving the tps from side to side by loosening the two bolts.

 

yea its a ***** to get to...

[IMG][/IMG]

 

you use a voltmeter and back probe it. if you have a haynes manual it explains it in there. then you just move the tps until its within the specified volt range and then tighten it up. the car might still idle a little different for a couple miles but it adjusts itself, at least mine did.

 

oh yeah, and before you ask, back probing is where you have to stick something like a needle down to where the wire goes into the tps harness (to make contact wit hthe metal part of the wire since its got that plastic outter skin/layer) and then you connect your voltmeter to the needles to get your reading.

 

Just wanted to thank those that helped.

So, kept checking resistance, and it was 0.5Kohms regardless of throttle position. After banging my head on the wall for a bit I figured out that the TPS sensor was incorrectly installed (i.e. not behind the throttle pin, but in front of it.) Removed and reinstalled throttle pin, and good to go.

FYI Hayne's procedure of using 0.012 and 0.016 feeler gauges is way overkill IMO. The linked image above is fine, just get ~ 0.5 kohm when closed and 4kohm when fully open and you will be all set

 

Damn I thought that would be the culprit, many people experience this problem b/c of incorrectly installing the TPS. I just had mine installed by a mechanic and it was good as new.