Idle Air Controller

I know a lot here have had idle problems and the remedy seems to be to clean the IAC. I was looking at my IAC and I have a couple of questions that I don't recall seeing answers to (perhaps becasue no one has ever asked them).

1-Is the gasket re-usable?
2-What is the knob on top of the IAC? It almost looks like a thunbscrew.
3-What is the recommended solvent for cleaning. I am tempted to use throttle body cleaner or something similar.

Thanks

I cleaned mine a few weeks ago and it works great now. There is a rubber gasket under the IAC and I reused mine. It was in good shape. I cleaned mine with air intake cleaner, not carb cleaner. I figured carb cleaner might be a little too aggressive on a fuel injected system.

When I did my TSB ..I pulled and cleaned the IAC. I use carb choke cleaner same as I used for the throtle body and the egr ports.. No problems so far.

I missed this past post, but yet another good writeup and pics from pcitizen:

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=479158&highlight=iac

I missed this past post, but yet another good writeup and pics from pcitizen:

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=479158&highlight=iac

Thanks for the replies.

Good timing on this thread. Our Windstar began stalling yesterday at stops for my wife. She had to keep one foot on the gas to keep it running. Pulled the IAC off last night and it really wasn't that dirty, just a fine layer of soot on the air passages. But the rod that moves the valve had built up quite a bit of gunk on it. This rod is inside of the spring and slides inside of another tube, so it doesn't take much for it to get stuck. Cleaned it out with throttle body cleaner and finished it off with WD40. Drove like new after cleaning. Not sure how long the cleaning will solve the problem but it's better than shelling out $100 right away.

Here's a diagram of the IAC on my 2000, you can see the air passages on the right with the rod, valve and spring.

http://groups.msn.com/FordWindstar/shoebox.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=44

"Timing is everything"

Thanks for the information LewisNC. The picture shows the item that I thought was a thumbscrew is actually a vent.