Cleaning throttle body

[Budtee]

Digger mentioned cleaning the throttle body in another post.  ( 89TC 8V. )      I had an 85 Lebaron turbo.  In the owners manual, I believe, they said to use a Chrysler cleaner of some sort and pour it down the throttle body slowly until the engine stalls.  Then let it set for awhile and restart the engine.  I seem to remember it smoking a lot for a short time.  

 

What method do you use.  All ideas are appreciated.

[Hemi Dude]

Digger mentioned cleaning the throttle body in another post.  ( 89TC 8V. )      I had an 85 Lebaron turbo.  In the owners manual, I believe, they said to use a Chrysler cleaner of some sort and pour it down the throttle body slowly until the engine stalls.  Then let it set for awhile and restart the engine.  I seem to remember it smoking a lot for a short time.  

 

What method do you use.  All ideas are appreciated.

Well, that method does in no way clean the throttle body.

In the 1960s, we use to do something similar when I worked a short time at a Cadillac dealership.

We used ordinary brake fluid and would pour it into the carburetor while reving the engine. It made humongous amounts of smoke.

As we neared the end of the brake fluid in the container, we would let the engine run just fast enough to tolerate a larger amount of brake fluid until we finally choked it out with an even larger dose.

This operation was done for only one reason. The high compression Cadillac V8 engine would carbon up very badly on top of the pistons when the owners, all those rich people, would just tool around town or gently drive on the highway. The carbon would build up enough that the piston with carbon on top would actually make contact with the cylinder head causing what would sound like engine knocking.

The customer would come in to the dealership and complain, what else do those people have to do, and we in the dealership would 'DE-CARBONIZE' their engines.

 

After the car had sat for at least a couple of hours, we would start the engine and get it cleared out a little. Then we would take the car out to the nearest parkway and let it have it. We'd wind the engine up through the gears and shoot all that carbon out that had been loosened by the brake fluid.

It was great fun and the owners were happy when they got their cars back, running smoothly and quietly.

 

OK, now to the throttle body.

Take ordinary carburetor cleaner in a spray can, remove air intake hose to the throttle body, spray a good amount into the throttle body and use an old toothbrush or your social finger and rub all around the area where the throttle plate closes in the throttle body. Spray from time to time until you feel no more buildup around an on the throttle plate.

Now start the engine and allow it to clear itself, there will be a little smoke, but not the amount we managed with the Cadillacs. While still under the hood, rev the engine a little while spraying the carb cleaner into the throttle body to clean all the buildup away. Reinstall the air intake hose and anything else you loosened or removed.

The engine should run much smoother, start easier and not tend to stall at stops, if it did that in the past.

 

There you have it!

[89TC-16V]

Chrysler used to have its own combustion chamber cleaner that you woukd spray into the throttle body while car is running at wide open until It stalled as you say.

[Hemi Dude]

Chrysler used to have its own combustion chamber cleaner that you woukd spray into the throttle body while car is running at wide open until It stalled as you say.

Running at "WIDE OPEN" throttle? That is ridiculous! That would likely clean out the rod bearings right out the side of the block!

Yes, Chrysler did have Combustion Chamber Cleaner and likely still does. BUT, it is not performed in the manner described above.

Spraying in the cleaner into the throttle body without some sort of scrubbing on and around the throttle plate will not clean the buildup of accumulated dirt and oily buildup.

You can follow the explicit instructions I wrote previously or blow up your engine using the most recent advice from 89TC-16V

[Budtee]

HD  Your method makes sense.  Thanks!

[89TC-16V]

Watched my buddy load up the running motor, hold the tb wide open and spray it full of combustion chamber cleaner until it died. He used to do it all the time. Never killed any of his customers cars doing it.

[ghostymosty]

I'm guessing the engines stalled out within seconds, likely never reaching max rpm. High part throttle is sufficient for this and I have known quite a few people to do that with auto trans fluid into a carb.

[Hemi Dude]

I'm guessing the engines stalled out within seconds, likely never reaching max rpm. High part throttle is sufficient for this and I have known quite a few people to do that with auto trans fluid into a carb.

(You can see how ancient that trick was)

OK folks! Let's not start talking out of our hats here. The initial question was, What method do you use to clean the throttle body in an 89TC 8V?     

​I thought I gave a pretty good description of that in the earlier posting above, which read;

 

"OK, now to the throttle body. Take ordinary carburetor cleaner in a spray can, (you could also use Chrysler's Combustion Chamber Cleaner if you like) remove air intake hose to the throttle body, spray a good amount into the throttle body and use an old toothbrush or your social finger and rub all around the area where the throttle plate closes in the throttle body. Spray from time to time until you feel no more buildup around an on the throttle plate.

Now start the engine and allow it to clear itself. While still under the hood, rev the engine a little while spraying the carb cleaner into the throttle body to clean all the buildup away. Reinstall the air intake hose and anything else you loosened or removed."

The engine should run much smoother, start easier and not tend to stall at stops, if it did that in the past.

 

Now we get to read about people using automatic transmission fluid (OIL) into the engine air intake system. Do you realize how foolish that is? 

The whole idea of cleaning the throttle body and the intake system is to GET RID OF ANY OIL SUBSTANCE in the intake passages.

The introduction of brake fluid (a liquid which is water soluble) will cut the oil and carbon in the combustion chamber under high heat and extreme pressure, which is what we were doing on the Cadillacs.

Transmission fluid, which is OIL, will only add to the contamination. Yes, trans fluid has a very high degree of detergent in order to keep the transmission clean, but should not be used in this case.

I don't believe the questioner was interested in making a lot of useless smoke, he merely asked how he could clean his throttle body.

[Reaper1]

I have 11 years working on boats. When I did "winterizing" (getting the boat ready for storage longer than 6 months) we would fog the engines (usually 2-stroke, but we also did 4-strokes inboard engines as well). When doing that operation, the last part of it is to fog the engine until it dies, and yes, that required very large throttle opening.

 

I have seen it done at a car dealership as well. They did it under the very same premise that Hemi explained, however they were also running a detergent directly into the fuel rail while spraying another cleaner into the engine. I can't remember for certain whether they fogged those out or not, but it always made it look like the car was burning to the ground!

 

To be clear, the winterization of the boats was ONLY for storage. As Hemi stated, you do NOT want oily residue in your intake.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Reaper1 (see edit history)