Butterfly assembly - removal and lubrication?

[kings1527]

Do we know if there is already a write-up on how to remove the butterfly assembly in order to clean it and lube it?

http://store.delorean.com/p-6395-butterfly-assy.aspx

I feel my idle stumbles at times because things are not rotating easily enough nor springing back to their rest position. I would like to get in there and clean things up and lube the pivot points of the butterfly valves and throttle linkage as well as the two main springs.

If someone knows of a step by step process for removal indicating what comes off and in what order, I'd love to look it over. Not likely the hardest thing to figure out, but thought it was worth asking about. Service manual perhaps? Current version with photos would be ideal.

I did a lot of work on my engine last summer and dealing with the throttle body was one thing. I had a high idle at around 1000-1100 RPM and the culprit turned out to be worn out deceleration springs on the throttle body (Thanks to Dave's recommendation). After I replaced it with a NOS part, my idle as been factory perfect at 750 RPM and never stumbles.

I did some write ups that might help you along:

http://delorean6575revisited.blogspo...ater-pump.html
This one had to do with initially removing it. It's very simple to do and I used the intake manifold removal guide from DMCtalk. That guide is perfect and you'll find links to it in my blog.

This one has pictures of my bad decel springs and details swapping out the entire unit for the NOS one.
http://delorean6575revisited.blogspo...-assembly.html

[Dangermouse]

Out of curiousity what sort of mileage was on your car when the spring wore out, so to speak

[kings1527]

Out of curiousity what sort of mileage was on your car when the spring wore out, so to speak

I was just under 41k miles. My car's underside definitely did not look like a 141k mile car, either. I don't really know what causes them to wear out, particularly at such a relatively low mileage. Engine maladjustment causing excessive backpressure on the springs? I really don't know.

My recommendation for anyone experiencing the same symptoms would be to look into the decel springs if you've completely ruled out everything else (Idle ECU, vacuum leaks, screw adjustments on the throttle control arm, etc)

[cybercusp]

Out of curiousity what sort of mileage was on your car when the spring wore out, so to speak

Mine had under 20,000 when the springs wore out.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Mine had under 20,000 when the springs wore out.

Mine had 23,000 when I bought it and the springs were bad then. I think it's a defective lot of springs.

[elfking]

+1 for bad de acceleration springs and a high idle here.... 49kmiles

[cybercusp]

Mine had 23,000 when I bought it and the springs were bad then. I think it's a defective lot of springs.

I agree. I can't imagine a spring rate would go out of spec just due to age, barring oxidation/thermal cycling, etc?

[dmc6960]

My 100,000+ mile springs were perfect before I removed them. I'd agree on the "bad lot" theory.

[Jonathan]

I've thought of that bad lot theory on a few other things within the car too. TABs come to mind. Although each time you start looking at it, you see quite the wide range of VINs for the people having the problems. The spring one here for example, has 3000, 5000, and 10,000 VINs which is a fairly wide range. Not necessarily that many months apart, but quite a few cars. We know Dunmurry didn't do everything super organized or "in order" (kind of like the matching numbers conversation), but you would have thought if they got a bad batch of something, and it was a box of 500 of that particular part, they would have used them on successive cars before opening up the next box of 500 parts. Hard to figure out what the guys were doing back in 1981... if only I had a time machine...

[Bitsyncmaster]

I've thought of that bad lot theory on a few other things within the car too. TABs come to mind. Although each time you start looking at it, you see quite the wide range of VINs for the people having the problems. The spring one here for example, has 3000, 5000, and 10,000 VINs which is a fairly wide range. Not necessarily that many months apart, but quite a few cars. We know Dunmurry didn't do everything super organized or "in order" (kind of like the matching numbers conversation), but you would have thought if they got a bad batch of something, and it was a box of 500 of that particular part, they would have used them on successive cars before opening up the next box of 500 parts. Hard to figure out what the guys were doing back in 1981... if only I had a time machine...

From what I have seen, it's always both springs are bad and you can tell they are bad just by looking at them. All the photos of bad springs show the same two or three coils that are spaced wider than the rest of the coils.