Sticky pedal
 

My throttle is sticking, bad. It’s not electronic, it’s mechanical. When I press the pedal, there’s a lot of resistance, then pop, it opens. I checked the linkage, lubed the cable and lever on the throttle body and it still does it. Here’s what’s weird, when it’s cold, it operates freely, then as the car warms up, it gets worse. Then, usually, it will get better and free up. If I drive it longer, it gets sticky again.

Now two months ago, I had the upper intake, EGR spacer and throttle body off. They were gunked up, so I cleaned out the spacer, the IAB and the throttle body. My 91 has the decal that says "don’t use solvents or cleaners" on the TB. I didn’t. I used a rag (and believe me, this took a while). I remember reading somewhere that the butterfly was ceramic coated to reduce sticking. Can the ceramic wear off? Had someone possibly used cleaner and when I cleaned it off I removed the natural lubricating properties of the gooey buildup?

It would make sense that as the motor heated up, the metal expands enough to stick, then when the thermostat opens, it cools it off enough to free up the mechanism until it heats up again and sticks. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Am I SOL, or is this an excuse to buy a new, larger throttle body.

Thanks.

I had the same problem with my 93, it was the screws that hold the throttle blade to the shaft in the throttle body, they were very loose, that coating your talking about is Teflon and you can use dish soap to clean it, your expansion upon heating up sounds realistic, swap a throttle body and see what happens.

ceramic coated butterfly? lmao...

Anyway, IGNORE THE STICKER and clean the Throttle body. it is sticking because of the gunk building up on the inside walls. Mine is doing the same thing, and I know it needs cleaned. Ive been through this 3 times now with two different cars.

Just clean it good, and you should be ok until it gunks up again. You can use carb cleaner, TB cleaner, dont matter. whatever ford coated it with that they dont want you to clean it obviously doesnt work, or else you wouldnt have this problem.

Do a visual inspection, pull it off and watch it as you move the butterfly manually. You can see where and why it sticks closed.

gtsr515 is correct the inside of the throttle body is coated with teflon which theoretically should never get gunked up with any thing, which of course is BS. I work at a ford dealer and we're instructed to "replace" sticking throttle bodies all the time. They get gunked up right at where the throttle body stops when it idles and as a result is hard to get open again.
A guy that's been my Mentor for the last 2 months cleaned a throttle body with non-chlorinated brake cleaner and used a wire brush to get all the hard gunk out. Now....the throttle body will stick again because the teflon coating actaully does help prevent stuff from building up (although doesn't eliminate it) so after you clean it, you may have to clean it from time to time to make sure stuff doesn't build up (because it's likely to build up faster than it did when it was new and untouched).
But you should be able to clean it out, and if you'd have to replace it anyway, why not at least try to clean it and see what happens before you junk it anyways,
good luck,

I found the ceramic coated reference. It was in the Official Ford 5.0 etc., etc. book.

I did clean the whole thing and that's when it started sticking, immediately. I checked the butterfly yesterday and it was tight and the body was clean. I ran it in the driveway for an hour, the engine got good and hot and the TB never stuck. Of course.

Guess I'll just have to move up that throttle body purchase.

Thanks.

Well it sounds like you may have found the problem, but just incase its not the problem, heres what happened to me...

I had pulled my upper intake (just as you had) and as I was putting it back on, the throttle cable had accidentally got caught between the upper and lower intake without me noticing it. I tried tightening it down and obviously it didnt tighten right so I pulled it off and saw the cable. It didn't look to pinched so I just moved it and put the intake on (correctly this time :D).

The cable had been pinched just enough for the pedal to stick every now and then. I just pinched it the other way to releave it and it has been fine ever since.

Just something else to check before you spend any money.

Good luck

Thanks, I'll give that cable another look.