Episode: 2084
Title: HPR2084: Cleaning the Throttle Body on My Pickup Truck
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2084/hpr2084.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:05:07

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This is HPR Episode 2084 entitled Cleaning the Throttle by the On My Pickup Truck.
It is hosted by John Culp and is about 24 minutes long.
The summary is, I record the process of cleaning the Throttle by the On My Truck, trying
to fix an idling problem.
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Hey everybody, this is John Culp in Lafayette, Louisiana.
It's a muggy warm Sunday morning here and I am recording so that it can kind of take
everyone along the journey as I try a little maintenance on my truck.
I've been having a problem lately where the truck stalls.
I could, uh, it's not idling properly, so normally the first thing in the morning it will
start up okay and then run, but if I make a couple of stops, run a couple of errands
and stop and start it back up again, it will start okay and then as soon as I try to
put it in gear and drive somewhere it stalls out.
And I've done a couple of things, it used to do this kind of thing when there wasn't
a strong connection on the battery, so I replaced one of the battery cable terminals with
one that squeezes the battery terminal properly because when I got the new battery, one of
the posts was smaller than I guess the previous battery had and so the terminal, when I made
it as tight as it would go, it wouldn't still not get a good contact with the post.
So I replaced the terminal with one that's smaller and now that problem is gone.
That actually kept the thing from starting up when it couldn't get a good strong connection
from the battery.
I stopped by my mechanics recently to describe the problem to them and they thought it was
probably an idling issue and suggested a couple of things, one of which was to change the
fuel filter, so I bought a fuel filter and it's funny.
I got the fuel filter and I watched videos on how to do it, it looked pretty straightforward
and then when I went under my truck to look and see where the thing was, it was further
under there than I thought it was based on the videos that I had watched.
And so before I tried the job, I ordered a creeper on Amazon and waited the two days for
it to get here before I did the job and man it was a breeze with the creeper you light
on that thing and then just roll right under the truck.
Anyway, the fuel filter, it may have helped, I don't really know, it certainly couldn't
hurt, it was probably due, but yesterday when I was out driving around, I experienced
the problem again twice when I stopped, I almost didn't get going again, but I made it
home, I decided I'm going to try the second thing they said to do, which was to clean
out the throttle body.
And I've watched several videos on YouTube about cleaning throttle bodies and all of them
say that they do this when they're having exactly the kind of problem that I've described
where it stalls out, it doesn't, either it'll idle too high or too low or it stalls all
the time.
So they say that cleaning this thing out is exactly the maintenance job you need to do
to alleviate this problem.
One of the first things they said to do was to disconnect the negative battery terminal
and while some of the videos that I watched did not do this, I think I'm going to play
it safe and disconnect that, I don't know what size the socket is to loosen this, to check.
Oh, right in one, it's a half inch, great, better safe than sorry here, it is a pain when
you disconnect the battery terminal like this, it's a pain in the rear because it means
that I have to reset the clock and all of the preset radio stations that I had, but I
guess that's less of a pain than like getting injured or something.
So I'll loosen the connector just a little bit, that should be enough, okay, negative,
get around that side, you, it keeps wanting to swing back over and touch the, okay there,
that should do it.
Alright, so my wife picked up for me this morning some throttle intake, throttle body and air
intake cleaner, it's a little aerosol can of, I think pretty toxic stuff that you spray
on the inside of the thing to help eat away the, you know, all the corroded stuff and
whatever is in there.
First thing you got to do the access, that was to take off the, this big hose that goes
from the air filter over to the throttle, maybe I should take a picture of this, I wonder
if that's going to mess up the recording if I take a picture while it's recording.
I'm going to try, so here's a picture of the little assembly there.
Okay, I'll take one of the throttle body with the hose still attached, and then once
I get the hose off, I'll take another picture so you can see inside there, wait, I'm going
to check and make sure this is still recording.
Yep, still recording, good deal.
Alright, it's a little bit dark under here, I wish I had a light hanging here.
It's a sunny day, but my truck is still parked under the cardboard because I don't want
to be out in the sun, it's really hot in the south Louisiana, and I don't want to get
out there, so I think I've got a, what do I have to do to undo that, is that right there?
There's a little cable on the side here that I need to undo, it's not on a hard time
seeing how it works.
I think it's coming off.
Actually, maybe it's not off, you know, it was delusional there, there it is, okay, so that's
off, and now I'll try to gently pull off this big hose, it was never so gently, maybe
I need to be a little less gentle, it's coming off.
Okay, the hose is off, shoot, don't look that dirty to me, actually the little flapper thing,
it's got these two flapper things in there that look kind of dirty.
We got one of the guys on the video called the Butterfly things, and when you press down
the gas, it opens up this air intake thing, and the air goes through there, and it gets
really kind of messy, so I'm going to take another picture, I think I'll turn the flash
on this time, so it'll show what it looks like in there, cool, all right, so I've taken
the picture, now here is where I'll start cleaning, first thing I'm going to do, I've already
got safety glasses on, next thing I'm going to do is put on some diamond grit brand powder-free
latex examination gloves, extra large size, these got excellent reviews on Amazon by Mechanics,
these are probably meant for doctors, but Mechanics said these are really good because they're
sturdier than a lot of the latex gloves you get, and you don't, you're not always poking
holes in them, using the various tools and whatnot, okay, so I have the latex gloves on,
now I've got the throttle body air intake cleaner, are you supposed to shake this stuff?
Okay, directions read entire label before using this product, personal safety do not apply
while equipment is energized, does it say to shake, it doesn't say to shake, seems like
I've hardly ever used anything of this sort that doesn't shake first, but if it doesn't
say so, I don't want to make it explode or something, try to pull this little, there's
a little tiny straw that you got to use to hook up to the, how does this open up, there
we go, okay, the cap is off, now I'm going to insert the little straw into the aerosol thing,
at least I think I am, it needs a little more persuasion, you're going to stay,
okay, I think that's good, all right, so oh, and the next thing they say to do is to put something
underneath this to catch draining, to catch it like runoff of the stuff, so I'm going to put
this nasty old rag under there, and drape it over the engine parts directly under the throttle
body so that this stuff doesn't get on it, okay, and I'm going to spray some in there,
and hear that, maybe not, it's going to pee, pee, pee,
okay, so I sprayed some on those little things that open and close,
I'm going to open them a little bit, yeah, stuff smells pretty toxic, all right, so now,
one of the guys I was watching do this on his video, he was clearly a shade tree mechanic and
some southern guy, really southern accent, when he got to this part of it, so okay, you sprayed
your stuff in there now, get your wife's toothbrush and start just rubbing all over, oh man, it made me crack
up, yeah, I think that will go over real well with the wife, so what I'm using instead is an old
toothbrush, that just, it was one that is no longer used by the family, how are some grime coming
up there, you need to open it a little bit, it's not as much grime as I would have thought,
you know, and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get it off of some of these parts,
I sure hope this helps the problem I've been having,
you know, this one opens up differently than the one they showed on the video, it's only got
a single part that opens up wide like that and then
it doesn't have the butterfly mechanism where there are two separate parts,
oh now I'm getting some good grime, it's all on the inside there,
I think I'm going to spray a little more of that cleaner,
I'm doing this by opening up the throttle thing and then spray,
okay, what that sit for a sec, it wasn't as fun,
okay, hold that open and scrub some more,
yeah, nasty, okay, I'm going to get a, one of these disposable shop towels and wipe the inside of
that, I was trying to remove the grime, have you careful not to leave little bits of the shop
towel even there though, push it open again,
yeah, it's not nearly as dirty as I would have thought,
but it makes me wonder whether this is actually going to help anything, I sure hope it does.
Everybody says that this is what you do when you're having these kinds of problems,
I wonder if I also need to do the air intake thing, another component to this job I could do,
the mass airflow, the mass airflow sensor cleaner, I wonder if I should do that one too,
I think I'm just going to try this one first and see if that helps, and if it doesn't then
I will probe deeper into the problem, it's not as shiny and clean as I would like in there,
I wonder if I need to do like some people did on their videos and take the whole darn thing off
the engine where you can just have the part in your hands and clean it really, really well,
I don't want to do that, it looks like a fairly complicated mechanism to remove cables, and I don't really want to.
I wonder if I should get another used tube brush that's not all grimy, and you have
think I'm going to, I'm going to get another one, we've got a whole selection, hey,
we've got a whole selection of used tube brushes for just this kind of thing,
so now I have a nice brush, old tube brush,
okay, I'm going to take the tube brush and rub again,
just come off a lot cleaner this time, but now let me open up the where the grime is behind that little floppy door,
yeah, it's coming out, it's going out kind of black, but not nearly as bad as before, maybe this is doing some good,
yeah, that's looking a little bit nasty, now let's wipe it with a rag,
well, I think I might have done, oh that's a noisy truck right there, I think I might have done
about as much cleaning as I can here, and I have not done any videos about the air flow,
mass air flow thing, so I don't think I'm going to try to do that while I'm recording here, I might
do that some other time I guess, so I think what I'll do is I'll move my rag from underneath it,
get this tube brush out from there, and reassemble this stuff,
back on, click right in, and these giant holes back over the throttle body,
there, that's good, now tighten it down, got to tighten the hose clamp down with the screwdriver,
don't, what they keep saying on the videos I'm watching is you don't want any vacuum leaks,
I guess if you don't tighten down the hose clamp enough, you create vacuum leaks,
and I do not want vacuum leaks, all right now, gotta put the battery,
negative battery terminal back on,
switch my socket wrench back the other way to tighten,
I think the socket wrench is a bad choice for this, I really could use a box and wrench,
but those are in the house, hey oh maybe I can use one of the long ones,
yeah,
something didn't want to come off, I got the poor grip with the, there, just kind of poor grip with
these latex gloves on, let's try that, oh that's a little better,
okay I don't think that's going anywhere, battery is reattached,
okay let's get the bottle of cleaning solvent out of there, I think I'm ready to close the lid,
not the lid, close the hood, let me check one more time just to make sure everything is
attached, yep looks like it, all right, close the hood, take off these rubber gloves,
let's start it up and see what it sounds like,
well that's always a little bit scary to start up the vehicle after I've been doing stuff like this,
but that's not a good sign,
well it started up, took it a moment,
I'm not sure if it sounds right or no,
I'm not sure about that, let's put on the seatbelt, drive a little bit,
well back in on my driveway just fine,
but I seem to feel a little bit of that,
the sense that I want the stall still, I'm not sure about this,
boiling hot, I'm not sure this did what I needed it to,
y'all, I'm going to drive down here to the end of the street to the gas station and turn around,
somebody's dog is running around in the middle of the street, who are you?
look at a doggy, he's running right in front of my truck, and he's not been neutered,
looks like a wild stray dog, watch out, move out the way dog, move out the way,
where is he? okay he's behind me now, got no sense man,
dingle the cat has much better sense than that,
here's a car coming, he stays out of the road,
okay I'm doing a little U-turn here,
well I don't know if it's fixed or not, and if it's not fixed I don't know if it's because I
did a bad job of it, or if because that's not the problem, but I guess it's something I might
cave in and take it to the shop, so far I've been able to do all of the repairs on my truck,
myself, it's very satisfying, but on the other hand if I've done a poor job I might want to have
some professionals look at it and fix things, almost back home now, that dog is just running wild
on the streets, and he's running back this way and running that way, I wonder where in the world
he came from, he's got no collar, hasn't been neutered, no where he came from, all right pull it
back into the driveway here, well I guess that's it for now, I don't know if I've done what I
said out to do or not, but I think I at least did no harm, but you should have a credit
go for your truck, right, first do no harm, all right so this has been John Culp in Lafayette,
Louisiana, and I will talk to you guys some other time, bye bye
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