Throttle Body - Air Inlet Connection
 

Hi All -

I just wanted to share a recent experience I had while cleaning my throttle body on the '02 Boxster S & see if some feedback from the board might help others. The removal and cleaning of the throttle body went well following the instructions from here, Wayne's book, & also Pedro's site. As a true mechanical neophyte, I could not even begin to attempt these things without these resources, so a big thanks to each for making them available & for all of you who share your know-how.

Anyways, I had a devil of a time getting the Air Inlet to Throttle Body connection back in place after everything was cleaned. I tried just about everything including adding oil lubrication, ropes, hammering, & still it wouldn't work. Since the TB goes to the engine, I was hesitant to put other lubes that might work its way in there. Ultimately I resorted to disconnecting both the Air Inlet & Throttle body & reconnected it outside of the car (again using lots of brute force) & then in a very tedious manner got it put in the car & tightened everything down with these parts pre-connected out of sequence. I am sure others do it in a much better way than I did. So if you have a trick to putting these pieces together that might help someone else (or me in several years when I need to clean it again), please advise. Thanks!

It's very tight. I used soapy water, heat, and a lot of patience.

As an 02 S owner and someone who cleans my TB almost every other month I can say from experience….it IS a tight fit! It is supposed to be. If you are not cursing, have bruised hands, and are crawling all over the car…you do not have the correct technique!

It is not a fun task but doing it when it is WARM helps. If you are in PA, at this time of year, the parts are not going to be pliable enough to do it without some lube. I use plain old WD-40, in moderation. It DOES help to clean the parts AROUND the TB.

Another tip would be to put the intake tubes on and 'slide them back' to allow the TB to 'wiggle' in over it. The TB will want to "catch an edge" but with the other side slightly deflected you should be able to ensure it is FULLY SEATED. So you slide the intake tubes as far up and onto the manifold as possible to get them out of the way, place the TB, move them 75% of the way there, check your clearances, and that everything is seating, them move them 100% in place. Also tightening down the clamps HAS TO at a certain angle AND within about a ¼" of the edge of the tubing to bite properly in the groove provided.

If you have any probs, get out a blow dryer and give your TB tubes a good warming but IF IT CLEANED inside and out it should not be AS DIFFICULT. Gloves don't seem to help either as you cannot apply enough friction force to the parts to get them in place. I may use Nitrile (doctor's gloves) during cleanup but assembly is best done by hand.

Good luck!

Thanks for the hints! You are correct, I was working in a cold garage & the parts were hard & cold, so that might have made it worse. For a while I thought maybe I was missing a compression sleeve or something, but after looking at diagrams realized I had the right parts -- just couldn't get em together.

If can search under my name...you should be able to find a rig I made up to do this job

Yes it can be a painful job!

Thanks Jaykay. For some reason, I never saw your post when I did my prior searches, so I'll post it here in case it can help someone else. Here's the link....

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/36464-trouble-intake-tube-throttle-body-end.html