How to clean your 1.8t Throttle Body, the quick way.

[noR]

Pictures are of a 2000 1.8t beetle; but yours will be similar.

Here's a close up of the general area you'll be working on. Your clips will be a little different, I've upgraded my clips to a more secure, and easier to remove T-bolt style clamp.

General area:

[noR]

And here's the Throttle body specifically.

The hose is the Upper Intercooler Tube.
That hose is held on by a hose clip to the Throttle body.
And the Throttle body is connected to the Intake Manifold by 4 allen bolts.

We won't be removing it for this, but it's pretty easy to do. And if you wanted to do the most thorough cleaning possible, then you'd probably remove it so you can access everything with ease.

[noR]

Loosen your hose clamp until you can slide it down the Upper Intake Manifold. The hose may stick to the Throttle body, but you can pry it off with a large flathead screw driver, or a pick if you have one.

[noR]

This is about as "out of the way" as I could get the hose. We'll need the space below the throttle body for the rags & the aerosol can.

[noR]

You'll want 2 rags, lay one below the TB, so that when the cleaner drips back out, it doesn't drip on your engine parts. It'll be nasty dirty funky gunky stuff. You don't want that on your belts or anything if you don't need it.

I use one to catch drips and the other I like to use by hand, wiping at stuff & whatnot.

[noR]

Here's a glimpse of what that looks like in there. Yours might be a lil' dirtier looking. That's kinda why you're doing this, right?

What you see there is the "butterfly valve", it opens/closes the air intake thereby controlling the airflow to the engine.

When you let off the throttle after giving it some go, this valve closes, causing the air pressure to spike in your 'boost hoses (airhoses from Turbo to Intercooler, then Intercooler itself, and the Intercooler to TB) This increase of pressure triggers your DV, and the air gets circulated (from after the turbo, to before the turbo) instead of inhaled through the motor.

[noR]

Here I've openned the butterfly valve by pushing one end in and grabbing the other end w/my finger tip.

It's a little stiff, but not too bad. You'll need to do this to get access to everything you want to clean. You want to clean not only the outside edge, but some of the inside as well; as much that'll come out as willing.

You can see it's right around the valve that the carbon/oil/gunk buildup really occurs.

You're going to want to get a hold of the butterfly valve like this, then spray the area with Throttle Body Cleaner. Spray liberally, let it soak a minute or so, spray some more. Spray liberally, wipe with rag. AT this point, you're really cramped and you can't reach much anyway, just do 'best you can', that's good enough.

If you were wanting it spotless you'd have removed the whole unit anyway and could even use a toothbrush.

On the subject of Seafoam:
Oh, you can see that little vacuum port from this angle too. For those of you that want to use Seafoam, this is where I'd tap into to suck the fluid into the intake manifold. Just remove that vacuum line up top and use that. W/Seafoam or any other top-engine cleaner, besure to feed it SLOWLY, after all, that's alcohol you're feeding to your turbocharged gasoline burning motor. Read the directions, follow them carefully.

[noR]

And it's done, squeeky clean.

Put your hose back on, fit it snuggly to the lip. And tighten your hose clamp back down. This *IS* a pressurized hose, so you do run the risk of blowing the hose off under heavy acceleration if you don't tighten it enough. [ Don't overtighten. ]

[noR]

The cleaner you should be using is "Throttle Body Cleaner", it's marked as such and sold in auto parts stores. Here's a couple examples:

[noR]

Go for a testdrive, and enjoy.

[iScott]

Very nice, noR.
Your throttle is in such an easier place than the 2.0's. Ours is all the way in the back.

[MiG]

Thanks for that. How often would one do this to his/her beetle?

[dnyed]

Thank you! I am going to tackle that this weekend! (I have two teenage young men with me..... ) Thanks!

[Fowvay]

Don't forget that the stuff will also run down your intake manifold, past the valves into your combustion champer and then seep past your rings. It's now in your oil so you'll also want to schedule an oil change immediately after that test drive.

[dnyed]

What about running it through the dishwasher? That was mentioned. Is it easy to get all the way off? Will I need automotive tools? (I don't mean the teens..... )