Any of you guys ever removed the throttle body to clean it? mine has a lot of buildup behind the valves. I have never removed it before and don't want to damage it in the process. I have heard ours are pretty fragile.
You shouldn't have to remove the throttle body. Just remove the connecting hose on the inlet side. Spray some carb cleaner on a rag that won't leave any lint behind. Wipe inside the throttle body. It used to be that you could just turn a lever and the valve would open so you could clean in there really well. I'm not sure how that works with the new Drive by Wire system. I'm guessing that you can just press on the valve to move it a bit, but I'd be careful not to bend it or anything. In the case that you DO have to remove it, the TB should only be connected by a couple of bolts and the electronic plug. It should be fairly simple. I haven't really looked at mine yet. It's only got about 2,000 miles on it so far, so I haven't gotten to that point yet. Anybody out there done this yet? Feel free to correct me if I'm off. Hope that helps.
I just cleaned my throttle body this past Monday...
I piked up a can of carb & throttle body cleaner from advanced auto parts for like $4. All I did was remove my iintake, push open the throttle body blades with my finger (VERY carefully) and sprayed some carb cleaner in there. Then, I took a tooth brush - to avoid ANYTHING getting stuck down in the throttle body, and scrubbed away. I then wiped the throttle body clean of any left-over residue with a lint-free rag and put the intake back on.
It's very easy to do and only took about 10 minutes from start to finish. The first time you start your car back up, it will gugrle and some very rough, but it only does that until it burns up the rest of te carb cleaner that went into the engine.
is your tb already dirty??? but a couple of things to keep in mind.... there i s a special coating on the inside housing of Ford throttle bodies and the cars run bad if the finish is comprimised... i havent had one of these new tb's off yet but i do know that ford also put a special black coating on the ridge of the older mustang tb air plate... this helped smooth out airflow for gas milage.. be careful not to damage that as well (if eqipped) but then again i dont know if it would have that with the new cmcv in the intake
I went to the local autozone and got 2 fuel filters and spliced them into the plastic lines that lead from each valve cover to the throttle body. Cover them with black tape and you dont know they are there. Steeda sells a oil seperator kit for about $50. I have about $5 dollars in my 2 filters. I also saw a filter kit for Mach 1 and Terminator Cobras somewhere for about $45. I assume the fuel filters will help slow the migration of dirty oil vapor from the covers to the intake. They have a fine mesh screen filter element inside them. It is cheap enough to try. Pouring Seafoam or GM Top Engine Cleaner in a squirt bottle and spraying it into the intake does a good job in cleaning the intake runners. Gumout Throttle body cleaner does a great job too. I have done it on other vehicles for years and it seems to work fine. I had a '99 LS1 Camaro and the throttle body always seem to have a residue on it after a few hundres miles and I did the inline fuel filter trick and that stopped the film from forming. Grand National owners would just vent the valve covers directly into the atomsphere through a K&N vent breather element and block off the throttle body tube opening. That what I did on my '87 GN. I don't think that would work on our cars. Also if you use too much air filter oil it can also coat the inside of the intake, throttle body and the mass air and cause knock.
Yeah it was pretty dirty. I have a early 05 got mine in Jan. of 05. I had never cleaned it and it had 37100 miles on it so i figured it needed it. No problems after cleaning though, ran rough for just a few seconds but that was just the motor burning up the excess intake cleaner. No real big difference to speak of, but it definitelty needed it. The toothbrush's bristles I used are black now, so i assume it helped some, at least its clean. Thanks for the info guys i appreciated it.