1995 Eldorado, throttle body o-ring

[BodybyFisher]

Hi, two months ago, I needed to remove the throttle body on the captioned car and the O-RING could not be reinstalled, it was swelled up too large to put back in.

So I replaced it

Its now two months later and I need to remove the throttle body again, what are the odds that that o-ring wont go back in again and Ill need to replace it again only 2 months later?

Does it swell from HEAT OR OIL/EGR gunk?

The car is getting an EGR pindle position code and I need to remove the EGR, but I darn near need to take the top of the engine apart to get at it.....

Thanks

[rockfangd]

I doubt it swelled already. Did you get solvent on the old o ring? I usually dont have any problems on recent disassembly items

[BodybyFisher]

Its funny, as soon as the old oring comes out it is swelled up and will not go back in, its too large. It happened on my 96 also and needs replacing. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this one did not swell yet. Its 15 degrees out, so this job isnt going to be fun at all. Thanks

[BodybyFisher]

OK I managed to get the EGR off without removing the throttle body to make room, so the O-Ring was not an issue. I did need to remove the cruise control and fuel rail however.

The EGR valve was sticking very badly, I cleaned and soaked it and when I put it back the pindle was free.

One of the 2 EGR bolts came out with aluminum in its threads and wrecked the threads in the hole.....insert a bunch of curse words here.......

I used my wire wheel to clean the bolt of aluminum, and it looked NEW.

Then I used a starter tap and bottoming tap M8-1.25 to clean up the threads in the block. All was good and the EGR went back in perfect....thank heavens...

I also changed the plug on the heater/cooling fan as it was intermittant. I got the connector from a 97 Deville in the scrap yard. The fan is only 2 years old, and the plug's retainer was broken off, so I wanted to eliminate the plug. Well the FAN still is intermittant, and it looks like a new fan is in order. Im going back to the scrap yard on Monday to get the fan out of the 97. I did all fan tests as per the service manual and all indications point to the fan as the problem.

[BodybyFisher]

One of the things I noticed is that things get very brittle on an 18 year old car. I am not sure if it was because it was 22 degrees out but without a lot of force I moved a 'nylon' plastic tube that runs to the cruise control out of the way and it cracked like an egg shell. I replaced that line with a 1/8' vacuum hose.

Working on old cars like this can be scary. I was sweating the fuel rail. I left it connecting to the fuel line and return lines and just moved it out of the way after I eased the 8 injectors out of the intake. I worried about the fuel line and return line connection o-rings leaking, but got lucky, there was no leak.

Cleaning the EGR got rid of the code, rough idle and stalling. The engine purred when I was done.

The blower motor on the other hand seems to have a mind of its own. It runs when it feels like it intermittantly. Nothing can cause it to run, I can bump the motor, bump the controller, the connections, rock the wiring harness nothing starts the blower motor. Then out of the blue, I walk away from the car to get a coffee and it runs.

There is a feature where as the blower motor will not kick on till the engine reaches 120 degrees. I seem to have the correct engine coolant temp when the engine warms up it ranges from 192 to 223 in this weather. Can a bad or intermittant engine coolant temp sensor (ECT) cause this problem? I imagine a balky coolant temp sensor would set a code.

The owner does not believe this is caused by the fan becaues its about 2 years old, so I am beating this intermittant blower to death, that is why I replaced the plug. However, I discovered something interesting while I was replacing the blower's plug, the RED wire is HOT all the time even with the key off. That surprised me, and I disconnected the negative terminal of the battery. I am beginning to thing that every time I disconnect the connector at the blower, when I reconnect it, it works might be caused by the fact that I disconnected power from the fan controller and not that the connector has been reset to make a good connection.

All of my diagnosis tells me that this is due to a bad fan controller. The ignition wires were really really bad, and they were leaning up against the controller. They looked like the original wires when I changed them, with burn marks all over them from leakage. Worst I have ever seen. Not only that, many of the spark plug boot connectors were loose and corroded, which would allow high voltage to sort of 'find' a ground, which may have been why the fan is dead again. This fan is not the redesigned fan, the controller sits right there (black controller), and is open to spark plug wires sitting up against it.

I plan to buy a blower from my scrap yard, there is one in a 97. I will plug it in before I install it to see if it works. Any input on this blower issue would be appreciated, thanks

[Texas Jim]

I think I remember reading in other posts, that bad plug wires against the controller will cause it to fail...

[rockfangd]

lol glad you got it done. Cold definately makes things difficult and brittle

[KHE]

The plug wires must be spaced 1" minimum from the blower motor or the blower motor will be damaged.

Unless you can get a 2nd generation blower with the fiberglass/foil heat shield from the junkyard, you're wasting your time.

[BodybyFisher]

Thanks Kevin