Cold weather protection OT

Boy did I ever do it yesterday! On my Ford Explorer it started to MOAN! I have to fix this maybe every two years. When you drive in weather below 25* the black plastic air chest that goes from the air filter to the throttle body will HOWL and sounds like you are blowing a single note horn at people. This is how you work through it. First.. change the air filter. Test drive . Next is pull off the big rubber hose "watch out for the sensor plug" and clean the throttle body with [throttle body cleaner]. Reach underneath the pedal linkage and open the flap. Use a soft tooth brush cause these bodies have a plastic coating. Back together and test drive. Last trick is go to auto zone- NAPA- car parts etc. and buy a new idle air motor. They run about $40-oo plus . Mine is a 1996 and it is on the drivers side of the black air box. Now the engine is quiet and runs sweet again.
Here is what I did wrong. Temperature here was 30* and pretty windy. While working outside I was breathing through my mouth. No protection. Couple hours latter I started chouging as if I was going to rip my throat out or heave a lung. Thank goodness I have a small bottle of prescription cherry pertussin with coadean in it. I sound like a frog now. Wear one of those white filter masks over your nose and mouth. It preheats the air. Going to Home depot to pick some up Man does my throat hurt!

It was so cold a while back here in VT the car battery swells up like a watermellon (sort of) and barely if at all works. 20below for days and didn't latch a doorlight.

Supprised the charger extension cord didn't shatter for being so cold and brittle.

Then I called around and they only warranty the new car batteries for 2 months PERIOD!!

Really 2 months period new car batteries 2 months go or die.

thats cold

got another one comin this week

Guess that you ignored that sticker on the throttle body that says "DO NOT CLEAN - THROTTLE BODY HAS SPECIAL COATING." You're lucky. I was a Ford tech for 30 years. Every one that got cleaned ended up being replaced because the engine would no longer idle right.
I even had one that I bought used and someone had cleaned. He must have figured that it would cost too much to fix after he ruined it. I went and got one from the salvage yard and it fixed the problem.
FYI - Ford introduced the coated throttle body around 1990 or 1991. At the training school,it was heavily emphasized that cleaning one would likely render it unusable, and would require replacement to resolve the driveability issue.

There is is - right from the manufacturer.

Where would the sticker be on a '95 Crown Vic w/4.6? I cleaned mine years ago and it ran fine afterwards. The wife's '04 Infinity fx35, now that is another story...no sticker on it either.

The sticker is normally located on the throat of the throttle body, and is usually covered up by the air duct coming from the air cleaner housing. When you loosen the clamp and remove the hose, it should become visible.

Now, for the rest of the story as told to me at Ford training school back in '91:
Due to buildups behind the throttle plate, driveability was affected. This resulted in irregular idle, stalling, hesitations, and surging while driving. Frequent cleaning was becoming necessary to keep cars running properly. Engineering went to work on the problem. The solution they found was to add a calibrated orfice toward the center of the throttle plate and to seal the edges. This made the buildup behind the throttle plate irrelevant, since it could no longer affect the airflow. A special coating was used to seal off the edges of the throttle plate at closed throttle. Removing or damaging this coating frequently resulted in erratic idling that could only be remedied by replacing the throttle body.

Now, since there are always manufacturing variables, sometimes there are no immediate ill effects from cleaning. Sometimes there are. Since replacement throttle bodies are expensive, I choose not to take chances and upset things by ignoring warning stickers.