Is it advisable or not to clean a Volvo's mass airflow sensor?
Richard

If you're really interested in this subject, you might get some tidbits by visiting the website of an Australian company, Inter-Ject .

My hobby, lately, is bosch fuel injection. Somewhere within the labyrinth of Inter-Ject's commercial/technical mix is a procedure for dipping the AMM in a solution that is supposed to clean deposits that get baked on by the "burn-off" cycle. Right now, at the stage I'm at puzzling out these devices, I'd say there's about a 0.5% chance I'll be ordering "trade secrets" or amm cleaning chemicals from Inter-Ject. But their stuff does make for interesting reading.

BTW, I've q-tipped the thermistor (not the hot wire!) portion of the AMM with IPA, but measured no effect afterward. Of course, I couldn't help but to wipe out the rest of the interior surfaces -- carefully. End result: no change.

Art Benstein, 5 240s 1xKjet 2xLH2.0 2xLH2.4

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Art Benstein near Baltimore

I don'tthink this is advisable. The mass air sensor only has air that passes over it. When the car is turned off, electrical current is supplied to the mass air sensor for a short period of time to burn off impurities and keep it clean.

the unit generally fails sometime around 100K+/-. by the way: what is wrong with car? mark

Why? It never gets dirty. Filtered air, no oil or gas or fumes go through it. Nothing to be gained. You might remove the plug and check the contacts to make sure there is no corrosion.

Are you trying to correct a problem?

The hot wire element is supposed to be self cleaning; On engine shut down, the ecu sends more than normal current to the hotwire element and it gets really hot-hot enought to burn away debris, or so I read in my Bosch fuel injection book by Charles Probst. The rest of it gets kinda dirty though. I cleaned mine with some iso just because, being careful not to use anything that would damage the plastic. No ill effects, but no positive change either.
FWIW
B. Agle
87 740

Rich -
I have no idea whether it is advisable or not, but I did it without any ill effects - and that was a couple thousand miles ago. I took mine out, checked inside and it looked pretty dirty. So I cleaned it with Q-tips dipped in a diluted solution of Simple Green, followed up with isopropyl alcohol to get rid of any residue. But be extremely careful and gentle and do at your own risk. I'll be interested to hear what other fellow bricksters have to say.
-Dave
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1994 850 Bone Stock, 1988 745t a work in progress . . . http://communities.msn.com/Daves745tVolvoSite