After installing a new head gasket and a new intake manifold gasket, I had the plenum off the car, so I decided to do a thorough cleaning of all the parts, including the throttle plate. I used Advance Auto's Carb and Choke Cleaner and cleaned both sides of the throttle plate as well as that entire barrel and then installed new gaskets in that region.

Last week, after putting all those parts back onto the engine, I started the car (the outside temperature was hovering around 5 degrees) and when I pressed on the gas pedal, the gas pedal would not move. So, I go out of the car and tried to push the throttle pulley by hand and it would not move - it was stuck. So, I really pushed on the throttle pulley and it moved and became unstuck and of course the RPM momentarily surged as it opened.

A few questions:

1) What should the torque be for the nut which holds on the throttle pulley (the nut on the bottom far-right in the picture)?

2) About a year ago, I foolishly played around with the tiny throttle stop screw which has yellow paint marks on it, and how can I make sure that screw is set correctly?

3) What could make a throttle plate and/or throttle pulley stick after a full cleaning?

 

Not sure what year you're working on but I was looking in my Haynes for 90-93 and don't see a torque spec for that bolt. Perhaps it's a bolt that just needs to be on securely.

Could it be that the cable is pulling too tight and causing that to bind up under normal operation? That cable needs to have a bit of free play, or deflection, in it between the pully and the locknut. My Haynes says one-eighth of an inch deflection. Of course if that defelction was off the car engine would be racing some because the throttle would be slightly open at all times.

It really sounds like something you used to clean the TB has somehow gummed up that pully. You might want to take it apart again and give it another good cleaning using something like a toothbrush and perhaps a good non-petroleum silicone type cleaner that evaporates and leaves protection but no residue.

 

After reading your reply, it hit me that I probably used the wrong cleaner.

I used Carb and Choke cleaner to clean the throttle plate and throttle body, when I guess I should have used Throttle Body Cleaner (which I did not even know existed, that is why I purchased the Carb and Choke cleaner).

Now, the next question is, has damage been done to the throttle body by using that Carb and Choke cleaner and is the damage irreversible? I read that the smooth surface of the throttle body could have been eroded by using the Carb and Choke cleaner or that there could be hidden plastic parts on the butterfly which could have been affected and damaged by Carb and Choke cleaner reaching them.

It is a 2002 model 4-cylinder.