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Subject:'88 Throttle Body/Switch cleanup
From:Shawn Wright, SMUS Network Analyst
Date:Mon, 25 Mar 1996 12:54:38 PDT

Hello all,

Just finished spending 2-3 hrs last night removing, cleaning and 
lubing the throttle body & switch to resolve a surging problem. A 
recent listmember stated his throttle switch was exposed from below & 
quite dirty - I thought I'd mention that mine had a black plastic 
cover sealing the switch area. Quite effective - the switch was 
clean, although the grease on the plastic cam was pretty hard. Maybe 
this cover was added on later years?

Anyway, after painting a few little steel pieces which were badly 
corroded, cleaning out all the gunk from throttle body, I 
re-installed. Amazingly, the switch required no adjustment - I could 
hear it click open just off idle, and close again at idle. Also 
interesting was the idle - it was at 900 rpm before cleaning. 
Removing all the gunk raised the idle to around 1100. I took a short 
run trying 1st & 2nd gear at 2500-3000 rpm & it seemed noticeably 
better. After warming up I reset the idle, which required about 1 & 
1/2 turns. A longer drive will prove if this really solved it, but I 
feel much better knowing it's all clean & lubed up.

ps: The bent washer thingy on top indicated this throttle body had 
*never* been opened up, with 323,000 kms the shaft was showing a 
little scoring.

Shawn.