Throttle body, wrench light, and YOU... well, me, anyway.
 

Ok, so in the very recent past, Awesome would throw the wrench light (aka the 'I'm not happy with the electronic throttle control system' light) and go into the limp mode thing. Pull over somewhere safe, turn off, restart, all's well until.. um, whenever she'd do it again. Further, her idle would do... funny things. Be higher than normal. Hunt a little. Sometimes almost die and then fix herself.

She was apparently not happy about something. But what...?

Reading about there's really about two main things that would do this: Throttle Position Sensor, or the Throttle Body Motor. Well, the TPS is readily available. Yay! Not exactly 'cheap', but that's ok. Got me a replacement, took off negative terminal, removed and replaced TPS according to specs/instructions, negative terminal back on, go train her... and all seemed well for a couple of days... still a little hunting/high though here and there...

...and wrench light. Dang.

Now, in the olden days you'd be getting a whole throttle body. Thank goodness time has passed and someone said 'y'know, what if, and this sounds crazy, I know, what if we made a new throttle body motor for those cars?' And so Dorman does. And they're lyin' around the places, just gotta go get one.

I get one. I go to install it last weekend, and... Well... it *should* work, but no matter what I try, every time I put the new endplate with the motor on, the butterflies do NOT want to move. Like, at all.

Hm. That's... not good.

I fiddle and fiddle and beg and plead and... nosir, the new one is just out of sorts in some way. Defective, probably? I dunno, I'm sorta ticked off now. There's no adjustments. It works fine until the last couple of turns of the screws nearest the motor and then locked up. Obviously binding something up. Where, I can't tell. Grr.

I had thought maybe it was an interference, so I painted the gear of the TB motor and the shaft and gear of the middle gear of the setup in the body to see if it hit in a weird way... not really, no.

I then put some dielectric grease on the gears and the middle shaft, thinking that might be it... nope. I put a thin thin layer of that grease on all the teeth of all the plastic gears in there... but alas. Nothing worked.

Fine.

I put the old motor back on on the body, boxed up the new piece, took it back for a refund, as I was now disinterested in the entire project and wanted to sulk a little and think about how I keep trying to do things and they go sideways on me these past few weeks....

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...Is it me? Have I lost my touch on working on cars?

No, houtex, it's not you. It's the car.

But houtex, she's Awesome. She's done good for 12 years!

houtex, you're just gonna have to realize that 12 years and 160,000 miles does things to a vehicle, ok?

Yeah, but the new part shouldn't be the problem, should it? It's to fix the things!

...

Uh huh, that's what I thought. Shut up, (word for a nice female dog).

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Bit like that, yeah.

All that to say this:

>Apparently<, whatever I did with the gears in the throttle body, either the grease, or the moving about, or the bit of cleaning, whatever it is... Problem solved. Awesome is purrin' like a kitten right now. Well, not right now, she's asleep in the garage, and I should be too, but... meh, mind keeps churnin'.

But when she's been running, she's been as normal as can be. Idle is right where it should be, no high running at a light, no hunting around, just... nice.

So. Just my lil' contribution here, if your wrench light is goin' off, and/or the idle isn't consistent, it may not be the TPS, but your gears need attention and maybe a lil' dielectric grease on 'em in the throttle body, and that's all.

Of course... that could change, I dunno. I'll let y'all know if it does. But so far, so good, keepin' the fingers crossed!

In case that helps, y'all have a good one. :nice:

One thing I can say brother is that you are tenacious. You keep going until Awesome bends to your will. Thanks for the tip on the TB, I'll keep that little tidbit filed back in the old storage system. With 97K on my old girl one never knows when it may be needed.

No, no... it's more I gotta bend to Awesome's will, really. Whatever she wants/needs/has to have, well, I'm gonna do what I can to make it happen.

She may be a daily driver, but she's also mah baby. :wub:

/I don't got kids, so she's the substitute. :rofl2:

Well sir, you must make her happy. You know the old saying " Hell has no fury like a woman scorned." :fear: :D

Update: Yep, that fixed it. No problems since I cleaned/repositioned/greased up the gears in the throttle body and its motor. Wanted to tell y'all that. Of course, certainly other times it could be the motor itself or binding butterflies or such, but for what it's worth, give this a shot before you get a new body or try the dorman replacement. :nice:

Thanks for the update my friend. One never knows when they will need this information. I'm happy to hear it worked.

Jim

Update v2.0.532

So all that mess above?

Scratch the 'mess with it and it may fix it' thing.

Oh, sure, it'll work for a little bit, but this last week, she put her wheel/tire combo down firmly and said "New. Throttle. Body. NAO."

Not one to retry the 'new motor' thing like I did before, I went and ordered and got and installed said desired New. Throttle. Body. Real deal Ford Performance OEM replacement. With new TPS and motor and all that. Pretty lil' thing too.

Retrained her as needed after installed.

Fixed for sure. For now. I'm guessing that in another 150K or so, or 10-12 years from now, I'll have to get another one, oh well. :rolleyes:

Just so you guys/gals know that the above 'fix' is at best temporary until you can get the new part in, 'cause it's not going to stop wanting it.

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Also, symptoms to look out for that I now 'see' were happening in the past:

Idle issues. Coming to a stop, the idle would stay up at 1000 for a little bit then figure itself back down to the 700-750 range. Never really thought about it but now she's not doing that. Gears getting stuck or bad stepper motor feedback or something.

Hunting at highway cruise speeds. This was very, *very* subtle, and only the last month or two, but at higher highway speeds, there was noticeable 'hesitation' feel, as if there was a slight miss or something, yet not. It's an odd feeling. Like the wind is pushing the car about, or the ruts are causing it to hunt, or a wheel is out of balance, and yet, you know, *know*, it's not those things... just a weird 'can't put my finger on that' issue... well, now I can, it was the stepper motor not being in the right place, under/overshooting where it was supposed to be and having to correct way too much.

Both of which disappeared with the new throttle body. And yes, these were present after retraining/cleaning beforehand.

Now that I've seen these symptoms, I'll be a little more proactive in getting the TB figured out.

As usual, in case that helps anyone out there. Info is info, right? :nice:

Thanks again for the update bud. That may save someone some time, and effort.

Houtex, any recommendations as to where to get said "...real deal Ford Performance replacement." ? 122k here, just being proactive. :)

Part number is M-9926-MGT. I bought it at SummitRacing.com on that particular day. The pricing+shipping (which is free over $99) was right. Fast too, got to me in a couple days.

Obligatory 'Not an endorsement' statement goes here. Many other places to get it from, just where I got it m'self. So. Many. Places to buy this from.

And although there's remans and new OEM style from 'others', as well as upgrades such as the 60MM from LMR that's pretty good pricing these days (which would require a tune), truth is after messin' with aftermarket attempts, just not worth it to mess around, IMO. Hopefully, it'll be 10 years before I need another one, and by then, I bet there's a cheaper, semi-easier fix that works, unlike apparently the Dorman one.