Hi Everyone.

Over the weekend my 1992 245 with 140,000 miles suddenly began to idle terribly and it stalled out a few times while driving with my wife. So I completely took off the throttle body, cleaned the throttle body, cleaned the flame trap and hoses, and cleaned the IAC (Idle Air Control solenoid valve). Put everything back together and the thing idles perfectly. Steady on the tachometer. No stalling. I love working on this car. The only thing that went wrong was I tore the throttle body gasket. I made my own temporary gasket out of cardboard and it's working great. But I'll get another one from the parts store and replace it correctly. Ends up that the throttle body was pretty gunked up. The IAC was a little gunked up and cleaning it seemed to make the biggest difference. Did I mention that I love working on this car? I just wish it had a cup holder and better air conditioning. Next project is replacing the driver side ball joint. Then I'm gonna re-build the driver and pasenger seats!

See ya.

Used Kellogs brand gaskets on my Kawasaki for years, got 2 free with every box of Corn Flakes!

Stoney, that's funny. I thought I was the only idiot who tore up throttle body gaskets and then had to replace them with custom cereal box ones. I've got a Rice Chex box on my throttle body right now! So should I leave it as is, or get a real throttle body gasket? The thing is running and idles great.

Best Wishes.

Dan:

Great job, idle issues can be a pain to resolve. Although Kellogs and Rice Chex gaskets have been known to work for decades, I would recommend getting a real gasket to avoid air leaks as the cardboard compresses and the torque on the mounting nuts drops "as a result".

jorrell

ps. If you are doing one ball joint, go ahead and do both then have the car aligned once, rather than twice... er, unless you already replaced the other one!

Jorrell, yup, I figured I'd go ahead and get a real throttle body gasket. I'm sure they are cheap and it's not much work to change out. I'll pick one up the next time I'm near the auto parts store.

I did the passenger ball joint back in October or November and I'm just now getting around to doing the other one. The passenger side was really messed up and was causing the front end to shimmy. The driver side should go fine now that I'm familiar with how the job is done. I'm not sure what there is to align. There really isn't any adjustablility in the way the ball joint is mounted. Am I missing something on that?

Happy Bricking.

"There really isn't any adjustablility in the way the ball joint is mounted. Am I missing something on that?"

Here I am, starting a reply and I don't know what year your car is. The MODEL/YEAR field says "ALL". But it's probably newer than the '78 that showed a big change in Camber angle after I installed new ball joints. Bad enough to fail the CT state inspection.

Turned out there was a lot of bolt/hole slop in the three BJ mounting points in the Control Arm. I must have taken up the play in the "outboard" direction, causing excessive Negative Camber.

It passed inspection easily after I moved the BG "inboard". So that's how I've done BJ replacements ever since.
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Bruce Young
'93 940-NA (current), 240s (one V8), 140s, 122s, since '63.

How hard was it to do your ball joint ?
Tools needed ?

Thanks.
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'89 244DL M47 170K miles

The throttle body gaskets are 75 cents a piece at FCPGroton.com

Order a few, and throw in some Mann oil & air filters, add rubber gaskets for the oil cap and oil dip stick, metal gaskets for the oil drain plugs.
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'89 244DL M47 170K miles

Way to go! Thanks for the report.
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Thanks for all the help. DougC. 1981 242 Brick Off Blocks, Turbo bars and wheels, M46. 1990 245, auto, 113k. 1993 245, M47, 154k.