throttle body cleaning

ok, the upper end of my 1999 4.0 is almost complete. everything from the block up is either new, rebuilt or cleaned. installed the intake/exhaust and the injectors and noticed the throttle body is filthy. heres the question. can i remove the black boxes and soak the whole thing in carb cleaner? when i install is there an advantage to a spacer and if so, how tall? thanks:woohoo:

No real advantage to the spacer. If you pull all the sensors off the TB, you can pretty much do any thing to it.

I would recommend buying a can of "throttle body cleaner", rather than using carb cleaner. About $3-4

It is safe for all throttle body coatings and yet is plenty strong to do a great job of cleaning.

May as well clean the idle air control while you're at it with the same stuff. They get carboned up over time and miles.

Yeah, yank the MAP, IACV, and TPS and you can do whatever you want to it. Last time I cleaned one, I used a toothbrush and a can of throttle body cleaner plus some Q-tips for the IACV seat.