The throttle on my 01 Accord 4cyl has been sticking in the closed position when I first start the motor. If I force the pedal down it will open and then I won't have the problem again until the motor has been shut off for a few hours. I've seen this every day for the past week, nothing on the motor has been changed recently.

Any ideas what could cause this? What would be a good starting point for troubleshooting this? I've seen throttles stick open, but never closed.

 

It's actually more common than you think. A bunch of gunk has built up around the throttle plate and is causing it to stick a little bit. All you need to do is clean out the throttle body and you'll be good to go.

 

Get a can of carb cleaner, Take off the end of the intake right at the throttle body, open up the butterfly with your fingers and spray behind it like on the backside of the butterfly, spray all that **** off of it

Then i would probably go to an oil change place and have them do one of those fuel injection cleanings

 

Should I take the throttle body off to clean it or just leave it on the car and spray the carb cleaner in the intake? I'm concerned that if I flood the intake with carb cleaner the motor won't start and I'll move all that gunk onto the valves and other places that I don't want stuck.

 

IF YOU CAN TAKE IT OFF TO FULLY CLEAN IT.

 

Leave it on and just use an old toothbrush. That way, you won't have to use as much carb cleaner.

 

I left it on and used a lint free shop cloth and my finger to clean it. I didn't get it 100% but the stick is totally gone.

I think I'll have a shop run some of that fuel system cleaner through it. Usually I don't like letting other folks touch my cars but this motor had more gunk it in that I like, if the pistons and valves look like the throttle body it probably needs some help.