Gasket sealers do's and donts.

Ok i might pull the throttle body off my toyota celica. The reason being is the IACV more than likely needs cleaning and or replaced. The 1st question is do i use a gasket sealer when installing the throttle body and the IACV? I know the throttle bodys gasket is diff and the IACV uses some sort of rubber gasket. 2nd question is the use of a torque wrench. Is it absoltely neccasary to use? Thanks for all info.

 

Skip the sealants; the gasket does the work. If you need to hold a gasket in place for assembly a slight amount of an adhesive can help (my choice is 3M trim contact cement), but forget troweling on the RTV.

Absolutely necessary? No. Desireable when possible? Yes. I just had to fix a bad injector yesterday on a project car ('96 Corsica, 3.1L; picture here: http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=331955 ) that involved removing the intake plenum and some attaching parts. Didn't pull out my torque wrench and I'm not concerned. In theory every single nut and bolt has a torque value; in practice many that are not torque-critical are installed without a torque wrench. When you start talking things like cylinder heads and such, now we're talking critical.

 

I forgot to mention that the IACV has a port for coolant to flow through. Do i need to use a sealant on it, the throttle body side or the valve or both?

 

No, the gasket does the work. Adding a layer of sealant onto a gasket can actually lead to leakage due to not getting proper compression of the gasket.

 

Thanks for all the help. Thats all i need to know.

 

The screws holding the IAC to the body will be corroded.
Give 'em a blast of PB to loosen 'em or you'll have an interesting time if a head(s) shear off.
If the slots give way, go at 'em with a needle-nose vise-grip.
I replaced the phillips heads with SS hex heads - cheap, and easy to screw in.
I didn't torque 'em but snugged 'em up firmly.

 

Hey, this is a gasket thread; no fair turning it into a hardware thread!

Good advice.