IAC failure?

[RustedRanger]

I took my IAC valve off and cleaned it with throttle body cleaner and blew it out with an air hose and now my truck barely runs. Can it fail or break bad enough to cause a bad vacume leak? If I unplug it with it running it dies(like it should) but could it broken inside allowing vacume to leak? It has 147,000 and is the original. I wonder if it had gunk built up around the plunger and when I removed it by cleaning it maybe it no longer seals? Can the plunger itself come apart where it seals? Right now it's pretty much undriveable. Thanks.

 

[wrecking-crew]

remember gunk holds together our old trucks. thats why i havent taken anything off the engine on mine. if it works dont fix it

 

[LearjetMinako]

A vaccum leak usually causes the engine to idle high. You may want to try again with cleaning it, but this time be gentle on the compressed air. Try a light oil to loosen it up, not too much.

 

[RustedRanger]

I did lear. And no change The air nozzle I used had two speeds off and full blast! I posted a simaler question on the 2.9 page but didnt get many responses. It's not idling high just running like a V-4 and really rich. I put on a dist cap,wires and rotor on it too but it ran fine except the bouncing idle before cleaning the IAC. I checked everything about 5 times like the wires to make sure they was tight on the cap and plugs. I checked the vac lines and plug ins. It ran fine then I cleaned the IAC and now it runs really bad. I'm wondering if I killed the plunger with to much air pressure.

 

[RustedRanger]

I did drive it after putting on the cap. rotor and wires and it ran good,then I cleaned the IAC. The wires are routed good and seperated. It does act like ignition but why would it run and drive good and then 20 minutes later run crappy after cleaning the IAC. The only thing I can think of is the rotor being bad the way it acts but again how would it go bad after 20 minutes of sitting while I cleaned the IAC. I sprayed out the ports under the IAC with carb cleaner cause I was out of throttle body cleaner,what is the sensor right under the IAC? Air Temp Sensor? Maybe I hurt that?

 

[Mechanickid]

I remember when I got my 86 ranger, I finally got it running and it Idled very high. Me and my dad looked at each other for a minute and said Idle Air control valve at the exact same time. I smacked it with a wrench and it idle down just fine.

All an IACV is, is a wax ball that floats around in a tube creating a signal. When they get gummed up they stick, so your first thought is to clean them. Doing so could damage it, so what I do is tap it with something just a little bit to loosen the wax ball so it can move freely again.