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I have a friend with a 1989 Toyota Camry Wagon and the idle occasionally gets stuck at 2000RPM. In order to get the idle unstuck, we have to press down the gas, kick up the revs and then it will settle back down to a normal idle around 1000RPM.

I thought I might be able to fix this by cleaning the throttle body butterfly valve, but it didn't make a difference -- idle still gets stuck at 2000RPM.

Here are before photos of the throttle body:

Throttle body before 1/2

Throttle body before 2/2

And the photos after I sprayed Seafoam in there and scrubbed it with a toothbrush:

Throttle body after 1/2

Throttle body after 2/2

Not clean enough? Any other ideas for what I might do to troubleshoot this idle sticking at 2000RPM?

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Elliot B.
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1 Answers1

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I eventually got this problem fixed. For an unrelated issue, both the throttle position sensor and air flow meter were replaced on the car. When the same idle sticking issue persisted after that, we figured it was probably indeed a mechanical issue with the throttle cable or butterfly throttle valve sticking.

Earlier I had used seafoam to clean out the throttle body. I cleaned it again using some throttle body cleaner. I didn't remove the throttle body from the car, but I spent roughly 20 minutes cleaning it. I also removed the plastic cover for where the throttle cable connects to the cruise control actuator and cleaned the springs and all rotating parts.

After cleaning it with throttle body cleaner -- I went back over the throttle body return spring, butterfly valve and connectors to the cruise control actuator with liquid wrench spray oil. I brushed it into the crevices to ensure it was getting deep down into the rotating parts.

I started the car up and voila, issue fixed. When you put in the clutch, the RPMs drop right back down to ~500RPM whereas before they would slowly drop or get stuck anywhere between ~1500RPM and ~2500RPM. It's been about a week now and the issue has not returned.

Elliot B.
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