Throttle body-do not clean?

spederman

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Apr 13, 2005
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The twin butterflies on my TB are gunked up. I was going to use some TB/Intake Cleaner and ran across some info that the ford throttle bodies supposedly have a coating on the inside and ur not supposed to use anything on it or who knows what happens. Some TB's actually have a sticker saying do not clean. Anybody heard of this? Is it true, and if so wtf do i use to clean the butterflies?
 
FWIW, and it may not be much, there may be some validity to this. I used to have a Ford Probe with Mazda's 2.5L V6. Those engines had a very thin elastomer coating on the inside of the throttle body that was used to seal the throttle plate in the closed position. If this elastomer was removed, it could result in the engine RPM hanging and the idle becoming unstable as the removed elastomer, taken out by the solvent, allowed air to bypass the idle control solenoid. It wouldn't surprise me if this practice was more widespread among manufacturers.

What benefit do you really gain by cleaning a film of gunk from the throttle plates? If you were to flowbench a throttle body with and without gunk on the plates, I doubt you'd see an increase in CFM... Personally, I'd leave it. If the thing is really gunked up to the point where flow is being compromised in any way, you've got other issues to address.

[Edit]Further to this, my 2002 Ford service manual for my Mustang states, on page 303-04B-5, the following:

"CAUTION: The throttle body bore and plate area have a special coating and cannot be cleaned."
 
...Those engines had a very thin elastomer coating on the inside of the throttle body that was used to seal the throttle plate in the closed position...Further to this, my 2002 Ford service manual for my Mustang states, on page 303-04B-5, the following: "CAUTION: The throttle body bore and plate area have a special coating and cannot be cleaned."

Do aftermarket throttle bodies have this coating?