How to Replace Throttle Body 2003-07 Chevy Silverado

Okay, friends, just a couple of things to think about before we get started on this throttle body job. There's gonna be coolant that goes through the lower area of this. So you're gonna want a little collection bucket. You wanna make sure you recycle any of that coolant. Safety first is a number one concern. So make sure you have hand protection and of course, eye protection. Let's get this down on the ground and then we'll get started. Let's get this engine cover off of here using an 8-millimeter.

I'm gonna get this outta here. Use your 8-millimeter once again. Loosen this clamp. You can also use a flat head screwdriver if you want. Do the same down on the far end, closest to the box. And then if your hoses have a little mount that are pressed into this, make sure you get those off of there. Go ahead and grab onto this. Give it a little wiggle and draw it away from the throttle body.

Here we are. Get this out of the way. The next thing we need to do is get our wiring off of here. If you were to look, you'll see this gray area, that's gonna be a lock. You need to press down on the center area and then kind of pull out a little bit. There we are. Now that we've got that unlocked, just press right on that black piece and then draw this off. I always take a peek to make sure my electrical looks good. If you see any funny colors, you're gonna wanna take care of that.

So now, if you were to look underneath the throttle body, you're gonna see where those coolant hoses run down and they connect in. Getting to those clamps while they're down like this can be kind of an issue. What I prefer to do is come right up here and I'll remove the three mounting nuts. There you go.

At this point, what you're probably gonna notice is when you tried to pull this off, it gets stuck. It's getting stuck here, and it's getting stuck on the stud. What I would like to do is remove this lower stud right here. You can do that using an E5 Torx bit, which is gonna look like this. It looks a lot like a star. Let's go ahead and get that stud out of there. There it is.

Now, that we have the stud out, let's go ahead and take this clamp and slide it down the hose, and get this hose off of here. This hose is probably gonna have some coolant in it. So like I said, hand protection, eye protection, and a nice collection bucket. Try to give it a nice squeeze. All right. Slide this down. I'm just gonna use a screwdriver, see if I can get this to move around a little bit. We wanna try to break it free from the throttle body assembly. Okay. Now that we've got it broken free, let's grab it with some nice long needle-nose. There we are. Awesome.

Grab onto this, lift it right up. We'll get this clamp off. As you can tell, somebody put this one on there a nice, interesting way. So I'm just gonna try to spin this with the clamp on there, see if I can make it so I can get to that. Okay. I do the same thing. Just try to break this free. Try to use some pliers, grab onto the hose carefully, and then I'm gonna use the throttle body to pry up against. So use a little bit of leverage here.

There it is, friends. Now that we've got that out of there, we have a nice, clear view of the gasket here. It's always a great idea to replace the gasket anytime that you're removing a part like this. So I'm just gonna pull it out. I'll take a look at it. And then we go. If for some reason you're not replacing the gasket, maybe you don't have access to one, or maybe you just didn't order one, it's always a great idea to remove it, give it a nice stretch. Make sure that it's not torn anywhere. If you can see any cracks or any areas that look like they might cause an air leak, you need to replace it, absolutely.

This one in all honesty, actually, it looks pretty fair. And if I give it a nice squeeze, it doesn't feel dry and brittle in any way. So like I said, if it's cracked or even if it's dry and brittle, you need to replace this gasket. Otherwise, it's highly recommended you replace it. In this case, I'm just gonna go with the assumption that you have a new one. At this point, you would just take it, slide it in here like this, and it should fit right in. We're gonna make sure it fits all the way around and it's seated perfectly.

That looks really great. Take a nice rag. Make sure you clean off any grease or debris that you might've gotten on there when you were installing it. Make sure nothing got inside of your air intake. Now, it's gonna be time to install our new throttle body. I'm gonna take it and put my hose on first, the one that's from the passenger side. This one was the hard one to get to.

Slide it round there. Grab that clamp, slide it down to exactly where I took it off of the hose originally, which is pretty much all the way down to the base. That feels good. Give it a nice tug. Make sure it's completely secured. If it slides off, the clamp's probably weak, in which case you'd want to replace it. Last thing you want is any coolant kind of seeping out of there after you just did that job.

I'll take this, line it up with those studs, slide it right on. At this point, I'm gonna take this other hose. We'll put that on the same way, push it all the way up against the throttle body, and then put your clamp on. Now, it's gonna be time to get this stud back in here. Go ahead and start it in by hand, and then we'll snug it up and torque it to 53 inch-pounds, 53 inch-pounds.

Now at this point, it's time to get the mounting nuts on. Let's go ahead and do all those. We'll bottom them out and then we're gonna torque them to 89 inch-pounds. Let's get our electrical reconnected. Make sure you lock it in. Give it a nice tug. Make sure it's 100% secured. It cannot be loose. Let's get this air lid [SP] back on. I like to put it on the throttle body first. Press it down, press it all the way in. If you wiggle it, it should help press it so it's all the way up against the throttle body. Take a double look. Just make sure it's completely secured against here. If for some reason it's not secure or it's even off at an angle, you could suck in dirty air and that would be very bad.

Let's get this on right here. That clamp, so it's sitting where it needs to sit. Awesome. Let's get this. Make sure you press that into where it needs to be. This goes over the top, by the way. Now, we're gonna snug up our clamps. Awesome. Let's get the cover on here. You wanna slide it back so it latches underneath those hooks and go ahead and bring it down so that your bolt lines up where it needs to go onto the top of the intake. Start it in there, snug it up, give it a check. Perfect.

The next thing you would wanna do is bleed out the air inside the cooling system. What I mean by that is when we remove those hoses from the throttle body, a little bit of coolant came out and a little bit of air came in. So what we need to do is make sure that the coolant is full inside the reservoir. Start up the vehicle, let it run. You're gonna notice you see some air bubbles bubbling up in here. Keep running it until you don't see any more air bubbles. Double-check the level, make sure it's where it needs to be for the full. Close this up and then take it for a nice road test.