cleaning/replacing IAC valve
 

hello all, i got some excellent advice here before on what was going on with my 93 camry and i think i need some help again. how difficult is it to clean/replace the iac valve and where is it in the engine? ive looked for some pics online but im pretty dumb when it comes to this stuff. i was able to successfully change the starter by myself so i was wondering if it is the same difficulty level.

the problems my car is having is after driving for a while when stopped at a light/stop sign the rpms start to fluctuate (mostly down) where the car needs gas or else it will die, this is in the winter. in the summer the car pretty much needs the heat on full blast or else it will do the same thing and almost die every time i come to a stop. i cant have the a/c on at all or else it stalls even more ( it even started to once when i was driving on the highway, when i gave it gas the rpms dropped down to the 200-300 range and i quickly switched it to heat and gave it gas and it eventually worked itself out). everyone has been puzzled as to what the problem could be but after some research in my downtime at work i came across quite a few people that had similar problems, with almost identical symptoms.

has this happened to anyone else? or does this sound about right? if not does anyone have any other ideas as to what the problem could be? thanks in advance :)

The valve is under the throttle body. It has a couple of coolant lines connected to it to respond to coolant temps.

Suggest you do an internet search on cleaning or changing the IAC valve for your engine model 5SFE. Also review posts at the Toyotanation website. You should find photo's etc. A Haynes service manual may help.

gotcha, found a crack in the big hose that connects to the throttle body. replaced that and cleaned the TB along with the IAC and backed out of my driveway and it stalled again. i then pulled backed into the drive way, got a little different guide to cleaning and cleaned it really really good with an old toothbrush and all, backed out of the driveway and drove around with the a/c on to see if it stalls and it seemed to work fine. i need to see how it runs after driving it a little farther then the few blocks i used as a test but so far so good.

Great!

got a little different guide to cleaning and cleaned it really really good with an old toothbrush and all

can you be more specific? for the sake of other drivers? last time I did ISCV, I had it taken off the car, disassembled completely, as in taken apart, all slime and lime removed, and there was some carbon build up, that cleaned too. toothbrush won't do this...

Great!!!