Throttle Body cleaning washing DIY procedure

If car maintenance is considered timely, it reduce the downtime cost, fuel running cost and increase the vehicle service life. Also if you consider the timely maintenance your car will be more promising and more cooperative to you. In car maintenance some parts do need replacement and some only needs cleaning. Debris, dust and dirt settling on the car components leads to a major car maintenance job and serious repair work. Throttle body is the major part of newer cars which needs periodic and regular cleaning and washing. Throttle body is located in the engine air intake system. All the air sucked through the engine passes through the throttle body. A throttle body passes 10,000 liters of air to burn 1 liter of gasoline or petrol. Although there is an air filter installed in the car air intake before the throttle body, but fine dust passes that filter and accumulates in the throttle body. Throttle body cleaning can either be performed by a professional mechanic or one can do it DIY fashion. As throttle body cleaning don't involve complexities, one car do it easily if he or she may follow the proper procedure and certain maintenance steps involved.
One with little work experienced and few basic repair tools like screw drivers, pliers, spanners, sockets, elan key wrenches and cleaning spray can easily attempt the job at home with great success. We will show your the procedure in step by step method so that you will be able to carry out the job without any difficulty.

Throttle body cleaning

Throttle body explained

Throttle body is a device which is installed in the car air intake system to control the air quantity entered to the engine to control the engine speed according to needs and requirements. Modern electronically controlled fuel injected cars use sensors and actuators to control the amount of air and fuel entering the engine to run the vehicle with optimization and maximum performance. In older days mechanically actuated throttle bodies were used on EFI cars where are in latter model electronically controlled throttle bodies are introduced which are known as drive by wire throttle bodies. In such throttle bodies there is a motor and a set of gears is installed to control the throttle plate or butterfly plate. The motor in the throttle body is controlled by ECU or PCM instead of direct control through driver foot. The throttle body regulates the amount of air enters the ignition chamber in engine.
functioning good and cleaned throttle body is a must for nice vehicle drivabilty. This is true when the car is new and everything is going well for you. But with the passage of time, dust, dirt, gunk and debris in the air starts accumulating in the car throttle body which leads to poor idling, low fuel mileage, hesitation and bad drivability in result. Hence periodic and timely cleaning of throttle body is a must to be considered to avoid sluggish respond and car engine stalling problems.

Throttle body explained and function

Throttle body DIY cleaning step by step guide

Dirty throttle body leads to different problems with vehicle. If one's car shows some symptoms like rough idle, less idle rpm especially in case of load on car like when switching on air condition, head lights or any other heavy load. In such case if somebody know how to clean his car throttle body, it will fix his car. Following lines will describe a step by step guide to follow to clean your car throttle body yourself and save your self from heavy repair bill and can solve your car problem yourself.
Here I will express step by step guide to clean your car throttle body clean yourself to save money and do the job with great satisfaction.

Tools required for the job

To carry out the throttle body cleaning job, It's a must to open up and remove the throttle body from the car. For the purpose a few basic tools are required to carry out the job. Such tools are very common and mostly they are available with many DIY people and many people doing small small jobs at home. Following is a list of tools possible needed for the throttle body cleaning job.
Screw drivers
pliers
sockets
elan key set
paper towels
Carb cleaner
WD40 spray
rag
brushes
eye protection
hammer
Also it could be a good idea to follow the car service and repair manual to have good idea of the job and to know what to open and where to open. Modern cars are very smart and of tight design. Space is very narrow in the engine compartment to work. For such cars the service manuals could provide valuable information for disassembling and assembling items.

Step 1: Park the vehicle in a good lighten and ventilated open space:-

This is a must to park the vehicle in a good open lighted ventilated parking space so that it will be easy for you to locate the vehicle throttle body as well as to work on your car to clean its throttle body and access it easily. Good lighting is important to locate things better and easily. Ventilation is necessary so that you will use chemical spray to clean your car throttle body hence you should not inhale chemical fumes.
Anyhow if you don't have an outdoor parking, you can use to park your car inside with good lighting and ventilation taken care of.
The throttle body is located between the air intake filter and the engine air intake manifold. You can see a big flexible air pipe or hose connected to it. The air pipe or hose is normally of black rubber material with rings like spring. Also you can refer to your specific vehicle service manual is you are not sure of your car throttle body location. Also locating the throttle body is not a difficult job.

Step 2: Disassembling of the large air pipe or air intake hose from the throttle body:-

The second part in DIY cleaning of throttle body is to remove or disassemble the large black color rubber air pipe or air intake from the vehicle and the throttle body. There will be little electronics connect that could be MAF or MAP sensor along with temperature sensor. Take care of its wiring. Remove its wiring harness connector with care not to break it. Also try not to change or alter other systems of the car during the disassembling process. When the air intake is removed from the vehicle, you will get access to the throttle body of the car.

Step 3: Throttle body removal or disassembling from the car:-

There are two ways you can perform the throttle body cleaning job. Either you can clean the throttle body connected to the car or you can remove and disassemble it from the car. Disassembling and removal of throttle body is a very good idea to carry out the throttle body cleaning job as in this way you can clean the throttle body thoroughly and totally with satisfaction.
for the purpose of removal the throttle body from the car engine you should have to disassemble all the hoses connected to it and remove all bolts which are four normally and sometime less or more. The hoses are attached to the vehicle cooling system too. So these hoses could carry coolant which could spell when they are disconnected. Take care of that coolant spillage too.

Step 4: Throttle body flap or butterfly plate opening for cleaning:-

When throttle body is off of the car, the next step is off course to open its throttle plate or butterfly plate to clean the interior of the throttle body with cleaning rag and some carburetor cleaning spray or WD40 cleaning spray. To open up the modern throttle body flap you need to stick some screw driver or spudger to keep it open during  the cleaning process. As the throttle plate is spring loaded, it's a must to keep it open by force during the cleaning process. It is necessary to clean the throttle plate of flap for proper throttle body operation as stuck or clogged flap caused stalling engine.

Step 5 Throttle body cleaning or washing

To clean or wash the throttle body a carburetor cleaning spray or WD40 spray bottle will be needed. The throttle body flap or butterfly plate should be sprayed thoroughly with carb cleaner or wd40 from both sides. Also it is a good practice to wash the throttle body walls with carb cleaner or wd40 to make sure perfect cleaning or washing of the throttle body.

After washing or cleaning the throttle body with carb cleaner, it's time to clean the throttle body inside and butterfly plate with a brush or with rag or cloth. Perfect cleaning of plate and interior of throttle body is mandatory for smooth operation or the throttle body.

The sides and wall cleaning of the throttle body is also a must as dirt inside car create turbulence inside the throttle body which could lead to further drivability problems and defects.

Throttle body cleaning and washing

Step 6 Throttle body re installation or assembling to engine

After complete cleaning and washing process of the throttle body now is the time to fix back or install the throttle body to the engine from where it was removed or dismantled. Make sure to install all gaskets and hoses attached to the throttle body which had been removed in the disassembling process. Every hose and item should go to its original place only to avoid any mistake and unusual operation.
All hosed especially intake hose and and the rest should install back to the system. All bolts and screws should go to their corresponding holes and places. Everything should dust, dirt and oil free. Also maintenance of proper coolant level is a must as the coolant level could be reduced during disassembling process of throttle body.
A car never be driven with low coolant level as it could overheat causing severe engine problems. The simple solution to this problem is to maintain coolant level to full after performing such kind of maintenance on your car.

Step 7 Throttle body adaptation or calibration

Modern cars throttle body needs adaptation or calibration process to be performed after throttle body cleaning process. Such adaptation or calibration could be performed using an average or modern scan tool or car computer. There is a special adaptation or calibration routine in the scan tool for the purpose. This calibration or adaption either you can perform yourself or it could be done by a professional technician or repair shop for you.
Without adaptation of calibration, the car could not maintain the idle speed and will run rough and feels like a bad or dirty throttle body. Some cars needs to take a few trips to reset or adapt the cleaned throttle body after maintenance. That will be explained in details in the next step.

Throttle body adaptation on scan tool

Step 8 Taking the car for a trip after throttle body cleaning

After throttle body cleaning job it is time to take the car for a trip or a test drive. In first the driver could experience rough idle and jerking due to ecu or pcm relearning procedure or adaption. This could be carb cleaner residue or other partials residue in the throttle body.

Such jerking and rough idle will be settled down in a few minutes of car running and idling. This will sure give a better feeling to the driver driving the same car with dirty throttle body before.

Safety precaution are a must to carry out such kind of job. Eye protection and gloves should be wear when attempting the job. Try to avoid breathing the cleaning spray as harmful chemicals could give damage to lungs and breathing system of human. Also you should avoid smoking during throttle body cleaning job. Make sure to remove the battery terminals at least one terminal either positive or negative to avoid any electrical damage or fire during the throttle body cleaning job. Also make sure to stop the engine attempting the throttle body cleaning job. Throttle body is the most important and sensitive part of an engine. Dirty or bad throttle body often causes rough idle and rpm fluctuation when driving a car. Also this problem will come most apparent when switching on accessories like air conditioner or headlights.

If cleaning of throttle body don't respond to engine rough idle or fluctuation of engine rpm, throttle body replacement should be considers as sometimes the throttle body mechanism sometimes encounter sever defects or problems which could not be fixed easily. In such a case the replacement of throttle body will solve the problem.

Hope this comprehensive guide about throttle body cleaning give you enough information and guide line to attempt the throttle body cleaning job and an average DIY could easily attempt such job with minimum number of tools.

Throttle body after cleaning