Folks,

I'm getting a bad feeling i'm about to make myself very sad. Over the weekend I did a bunch of things getting my 7 a bit more ready for the road. One of the things I did was flush the cooling system out.

Last night I received my new-ish TPS in the mail and this morning I stepped out to swap them in what I thought would be a 10min job. Is there a philips head screw on the bottom of that bracket? I cant really see it but it sure feels like it. Am I looking at removing the entire throttle body just to replace the TPS?

--m

 

What year, turbo or non-turbo?

Checking FSM...

 

Sorry about that. Its a 91 N/A model. I looked thru the service manuals and I couldnt really tell if there was any hope of getting it off without the entire throttle body or not. Figured someone here has to have done this once...if not more.

 

Just two 10MM (or 8MM?) bolts as I recall.

 

yeah its not i'm afraid, not on my 91 and not on the replacement TPS I have either. There are two 8mm bolts holding the TPS to the side of the throttle body and then it appears there is one philips head screw (maybe a replacement?) under the throttle body thats bolted to the TPS bracket as well. I pulled a few things off but with the age of the TPS there is no way the screw on the understide wants to move. Looks like I have to pull the whole darn throttle body off - along with its never ending number of hoses that have spent 16 years attached to it. X_X

Ah the glory of owning old cars...

 

89-91 NA have a bolt under the TB. So yes it has to be removed. You dont have to pull the UIM as I recall, you can get the TB to slide off sideways.

Don't even bother with a phillips screwdriver when trying to get this screw out either. Go straight to the monster flathead for extra torque. They put that sucker on TIGHT for some reason. Even though you could possibly get to it with an offset screwdriver while the TB is installed you could never get enough torque on it to loosen.

I never reinstall this screw.

89-91 turbo cars have the additional bolt too, but since the turbo TB's sit upside-down, the bolt is on top and easy to get to.

 

Thanks for the tips. In fact I did try the offset screw driver which you could feel promptly attempting to destroy the screw. I also had to loosen up the top part of the intake manifold because the throttle body wouldn't clear the fuel rail. The fun never ends.

 

Not familiar with 89-91's...but is there enought room for a grinder, a dremel, or a impact hammer with a chisel to get the head off? Just my thoughts after dealing with similar problems.

 

The screw is fairly hard to see under the throttle body even with the intake hose removed. Given that your vision is so impaired for dealing with it I'm not really sure how much time you would save by using that method. The top of the intake is only like 4 bolts and 2 nuts to remove and you dont even have to take it completely off, just lift it up a bit to clear the fuel rail.

The much more annoying part is dealing with the coolant hoses which unless removed recently on the throttle body will not want to slide off easy. Total time to do this job if you know what you need to do already is probably only an hour.

 

for what its worth if ur gonna be pullin all those hoses off.. before u even start get replacements for em. get a buncha bulk vac line etc an replace whatever u mess with hose wise if they are all original hoses. i started messin around an before i knew it id replaced damn near all of em inside 6 months because they had broken or cracked or were simply too difficult to remove effeciently. a new 15 -30 dollar hose to replace a old worn one that will take an hour of pissin around to remove without destroying it is a small price to pay an a helluva time saver.

 

yep, 2 10mm bolts!! Ive changed mine once before.