Are your current bearings bad? Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a throttle body, from a running car, that had bad bearings. All the oil in the intake usually keeps these some what preserved.

With the exception being a TB sitting outside in a junk yard exposed to the elements, have others had bad bearings?

I usually just disassemble, clean and lube...

 

Frankly I think they’re serviceable. It rotates smoothly and I can’t feel. Mainly it’s that I’m in there already and it’s good for peace of mind.

 

I am the one of the madmen that completely unnecessarily completely rebuild my intake manifold when all it needed was a thorough cleaning and check for proper bearing operation and lubrication as necessary. Why? Because it was fun project and and I am nutty like that. Are my butterfly screws going to pop-out? I sure hope not but that is what I smashed the ends just like the factory does (could of added red loctite as well in retrospect). A good cleaning, soaking, degreasing, and then lubrication would have been just as effective.

 

My bearings were fine but the seals that the house were questionable. I wanted to be sure that there would not be any pesky leaks in the coming 30 years- haha.

pete

 

I read this thread a while back and, while I agree its madness, still looked pretty fun. I didn't want to have my car out of service for however long it would take me to go through the intake though, so I left well enough alone. Then I came across an intake a fellow rennlister was getting rid of at a reasonable price so decided why not.....let it begin.


This intake looks like its had some work maybe in the past, as the ICV hoses had hose clamps rather than oetiker clamps that I believe should be there. The intake didn't come with the ICV so I'll have to sort that out later.


The rubber on these is pretty stiff. I'm not really sure how pliable these are supposed to be, but they were stiff and stuck on real good....took a while to get them all worked off. If anyone has a good source for methyl salicylate please let me know.


This is a C2 intake, but my car is actually a C4, so I get to ditch a lot of this rats nest. Is there anything that a C2 intake would be missing before being suitable for the C4?


A keen eye might notice a rarely seen intact WOT cam. I'll likely still replace it with an aluminum one if Goughary still has them available?


Not entirely sure what happened here, could have been during shipping but this bracket is really jacked up. I'll straighten it out and have it plated along with whatever other hardware comes off. I didn't mess around taking too many pictures during disassembly as there are many great photos already in this thread if I recall. Here was the state of things thursday evening - most things stripped off and the plenums removed from the throttle body.




This morning I stripped the throttle body and pulled the butterflys out. The butterfly screws came out mostly without issue, but one was extra aggressively peened and required so much torque that the phillips socket(?) is distorted - I'll likely replace this before re-assembly.

I'm going to plate whatever I can (hose clamps, screws, brackets etc) and ultrasonic clean the other bits. Haven't decided how I'm going to finish the plenums yet, but I'm thinking I'll try the Cerakote route. I also haven't acquired a suitable bearing puller yet, or fully decided I even need to pull the bearings, but maybe I will just for fun. Any recommendations on a tool that isn't total garbage?

Lastly, does one of you that have ventured down this path have a consolidated list of the replaceable little vacuum bits and bobs from pierburg etc? If not no worries, I'll sift through the thread.

Cheers

Tom

 

Tom- yes i have the little WOT cams available.
I also have a bunch of intakes, throttle bodies and tons of little spare parts.

I passed out most of the full intakes that i had left over to friends around here...but still have a bunch of nibbles laying about. Keep positing here as you make progress and let's see what you do! If you come up with parts and such that you need, let me know...

Also- while working on the magnesium intake is fun, unless you can re-pickle that part, i wouldn't necessarily do too much there. If yours is highly corroded already, dive in with a refinish. And short of acid pickling the magnesium- you could use Prekote, and then paint over that.

Enjoy the trip!

 

I used ceracote on my mag throttle body and its holding up great- but- i used the kind that requires baking and the intake cracked where the aluminum barb is pressed in. I ground that part out and filled the crack with epoxy and it’s totally fine but- do not put these items in the oven. Use the stuff that cures at room temp if you go with ceracote.

I posted early in this thread (#484)

id love to have the details of the C4 vs the C2 in terms of the rats nest. I’m looking to simplify as much as possible on my car.

pete