20260804 Cleaning VeeChai's Throttle Body

The Energetically 1.3 MyVi Sloth

 Lately VeeChai seemed to be quite sluggish lately to the point I felt it has his own moods. Sometimes, he is as springy as a tightly wound spring being released and sometimes, it is like dragging a person who just woke up. So, after a bottle of injector cleaner, he felt a little better but that was just for a few days. At one time, I accidentally shifted the hear to NEUTRAL at the lights and...... he died. But most of the time, he kinda struggled when I did an almost sudden stop.

 So, it is either the throttle body, the ignition coils, or... (shudder) the 15 year old fuel pump. With the latter being most probably the main culprit, it would mean having to send him to a Workshop. I know my colleagues can get the Job done but it would take an hour or two, which the Management would not agree. Even if we do this at 3AM in the morning.

 Anyway, I have seen them doing it most of the time and this time, I prefer to take out the whole assembly for a thorough cleaning. I mean, how hard can it get? Worse case scenario would be that I would have to call my Boss telling him that my car cannot start...

 I rushed home to get the Project done as quickly as possible. Before I begin, I need to remind you that re-enacting a 7-minute YouTube video would take you about 50 minutes to complete a 30 minute Project.

 

The first thing I need to do would be to unlock the six clips that holds the cover of Air Cleaner (it says so on this Manual, Section SM1, BO3, Page 04 of 04, which is the K3 Engine).

This is the same step where you use to change the Air Filter. Anyway, remove the three #10 bolts. Take care the uppermost bolt is shorter than the other two at the bottom.

Unclip the hose at the top and flip the Air Cleaner assembly to the right.

Before that, I used a #10 spanner to loosen the throttle cable

Carefully remove the throttle body cable and let it rest on the left.

The remove the two #10 bolts as well.

The pair of #12 bolts are the final pieces before we start to take out the hoses and piping.

Before that, here is the view of VeeChai's throttle body, which to me, looks quite clean...

I have to say, the Project ends here because the two #12 bolts were quite hard to loosen at the risk of bending the tool. I don't think I can afford a Gym Membership neither.

In the end, I sprayed as much Throttle Body cleaner as I could before it starts to affect my nostrils. Each dispersal must be followed with a quick wipe of the cloth as the instant result chemicals evaporates quite fast. And the cloth has minimal dirt. Then you start the car, which dies at first. Repeat until it does start and you just press on the go-go pedal all the way until a neighbour comes out and yells at you.

In the end, I cleaned the are around these two bolts and connected the strip of copper (which I bought from Destiny Electronics in Penang just 2 months ago)

 In the End

 To be honest, I am not sure if what I did helped the situation. Most of the time, when the Technicians did it, they had to start the car a few times while mine only took two. So, how does it feel? This morning, VeeChai felt very energetic. However, I cannot determine if it was the botched throttle body cleaning or that strip of copper.