I started to replace the TPS today. It seemed simple enough until I twisted the heads off of the bolts holding the sensor to the throttle body. At that point I tried to use vice grips to loosen the bolts, but that just broke off more of the bolt. They feel so soft, like aluminum. How do I get them out of the throttle body?

 

They have bolt extracters at like home depot. Just see if they have one small enough for yours. Basically you will drill into the bolt and then you will thread in the bolt extracter. It is left hand threaded so when you turn it in will will eventually catch and turn out your bolt.

Good luck

Bill

 

That's weird, the TPS bolts shouldn't be torqued down that much, usually just slightly more than hand-tightened.

Anyway, is the TPS off of the throttle body now, or is still on? Are there still parts of the bolts exposed, or have the bolts broken off flush inside the TBI unit? It sounds like just the heads have broken off, but just want to make sure.

 

The TPS is off. Once the bolt heads broke off, I pulled it off past the exposed, threaded bolt shafts. There was about an inch of bolt sticking out from the throttle body, but I broke one off trying to loosen it with the vice grips. So, there's still about an inch on one bolt and between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch on the other still exposed. The bolts broke right below the heads.

 

There are a few bolt extractor kits out there that should get that out. However you may spend more than just finding a used core at a yard to swap all your current TBI parts onto it.

 

Bolt extractor will not work on the soft aluminum TPS screws. However, the good news is they are aluminum and you can easily drill and tap - just make sure you drill straight. Use a 0.159" drill and tap to 10-32 thread. You won't even have to hog out the TPS for the 10-32 screws.

 

SEARS has a nice bolt extraction "kit".