98 ES 222K

fixed the throttle body valve. it was the bottom chord the one that when you hit the gas the car pulls on to open it. for some reason it wasn't calibrated to the right position for it to open all the way. so i loosened the bolts around it and pushed it back until the valve opened all the way then i tightened it there. Car picks up like crazy now. getting to 80-100 with ease. hopefully it helps on the mpg it seems like it might have. but yea. at least that's one less issue.

Quick ? does it idle high and is it still driving good after that quick fix, I think I might need 2 do the same because after cleaning the MAF and the IACV on my 98 es300 it idling high and also has the same thing going on with the throttle body as well? thanks for any input

Thanks again to GoldenStateSilverSport. I am sure your procedure saved me at least $650 considering what dealers here in southern California charge for shop time.

For the benefit of other LOC members who may do this job in the future, I want to share a trick I learned about removing the VERY tight screws (phillips head).

I had tremendous difficulty removing these phillips-head screws (they are all the same size) => the 2 screws holding the coil on the IACV, the 3 screws holding the right throttle body and the 4 screws holding the IACV to the right throttle body. I tried tight-fitting screwdrivers, various phillips tips in a ratchet drive, vise-grips on screwdrivers, etc…but the screws wouldn’t budge. All I was accomplishing was damage to the screw heads.

I was about to give up when I thought of a damaged bolt remover tool (that uses a socket principle) I had seen advertised. My reasoning was that if I could find the correct size remover socket, that the tapered, spiral-flute sockets would fit over and grab the shoulder of the phillips-head screws. Then, I could apply enough torque to loosen them.

I found what I was looking for at Sears. I bought their part number 9-52161 (Craftsman “Bolt-Out”-Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover Set). I also looked at Sears part number 9-52154 (Craftsman “Screw-Out”-Damaged Screw Remover Set) but decided they would do more damage to the phillips heads. Bottom Line…9-52161 did a very nice job. The #4 remover out of this set engaged the shoulder of these particular screw heads well. Note: to drive the remover…I put the hex end of it in an appropriate size socket and used a ratchet wrench to drive the socket.

For those that have not seen them - these remover sockets have tapered spiral flutes inside them, which grab a damaged bolt head when they are turned counter clockwise and release the head when they are turned clockwise.

An afterthought - I was surprised to see these rather large screws in a phillips-head format. Seemed a really poor choice. I have never seen that in an American car…they use hex head instead. Yet, I don’t think this was a mistake because the Japanese designers are smart folks. Therefore, I wonder if the use of phillips-head screws in this application was intentional…to make it that much harder for non-dealer mechanics to work on? The use of these screws make a fairly easy disassembly and cleaning job WAY tougher. It would cause a lot of people to say, "I'll take it to the dealer".

By the way - I did take off the black metal piece mounted on top on the two throttle inlet holes that TunedRX300 asked GoldenStateSilverSport about. It improved access and visibility, which really helped when aligning and bolting up the right throttle body to the left one. I think it made the job easier, overall.

Best wishes to everyone. :D

Hello and I'm new to this but saw the post and wanted to know would these be okay even if the screw isn't stripped yet? I just want to save time and go straight in and finish asap, I appreciate such a great post as well, thanks.