cleaning afm??? 2 disassemble or not?

[boost fiend]

ok, my car keeps throwing codes here and there. diffrent ones all the time. i think its either the afm or the harness leading to it. ive heard of cleaning it, and i tried. anyone know of a good way to clean it? should i take it apart to clean it or is that a major no-no? i have a really good cleaner at the shop that dries clean and i tried that, now im just wondering if i should take it apart to clean it or not. afm's arent that cheap new and i dont like buying sensors from the parts yard. any ideas?????????

[aye mate]

What codes are you getting? I might have an afm that I could sell you for cheap. And by taking it apart you mean taking the black box off the housing? Or taking apart the black box? I wouldn't even think about taking the box apart.

[figgie]

ok, my car keeps throwing codes here and there. diffrent ones all the time. i think its either the afm or the harness leading to it. ive heard of cleaning it, and i tried. anyone know of a good way to clean it? should i take it apart to clean it or is that a major no-no? i have a really good cleaner at the shop that dries clean and i tried that, now im just wondering if i should take it apart to clean it or not. afm's arent that cheap new and i dont like buying sensors from the parts yard. any ideas?????????

lmao

not all what you hear in the inet is true.

And you just fucked up your AFM if you cleaned the electronic part. That was found to be bogus and acutally ends up BREAKING the electronic portion of the AFM.

[boost fiend]

i get codes like bad boost and a few others. but if anyone is interested with selling one cheap(hint hint), ill pick it up if the price is right. and yes i know not everything on the net is true, i just thought it might b ok. learning the hard way can be a pain in the ass.

[suprabad]

There is some kind of coating on the sensor inside the afm and as figgie said if you cleaned it you f'd it up. I've heard stories of people cleaning it with some kind of chemical found in photo labs but even then it doesn't last long.
Looks like it's time to dig deep in the old wallet.

[boost fiend]

my wallet hurts as it is now. so aye mate, ya still got a extra afm ya wanna sell?

[kwnate]

I broke my by cleaning it on my old supra about 5 years ago, I was a stupid kid and it costs alot to replace it...

[STLSupra]

What about if i removed the AFM and just wiped it off..but did not clean with solution?? Did I still fuck it up?? Just wiped it off with a dry rag and did not even touch the sensor?? Is it fucked??

-GREG

[tlo86]

i sprayed mine with electric cleaner, fixed the trouble i was having and no probs for a year so far =P

[miggles]

tlo86: when u sprayed ur afm with contact cleaner did u spray the housing and the electrics? and did u spray in the lil slot in the triangular shaped protrusion?I bought a can of contact cleaner yesterday AUD$25 mates rates and i wanna start spraying stuff.Perhaps a tutorial on this subject?

[chriso]

I wouldn't spray anything in there.....inside there is a concave mirror with some kind of magical coating on it. The cleaner will mess up that coating and render your afm useless. Don't do it. Check your connector and make sure all of the wires are intact. Otherwise splurge and buy the electronics off these forums for about $50.

[figgie]

Well actually i have opened up the AFM electronics. It is not a coating.

Inside the AFM there is a THIN piece of highly polished aluminum. It looks like a butterfly. When the AFM electronics get turbulance the butterfly flapsfrom one side to the other. On top of the butterfly there is an IR LED which bounces the IR beam to the optical diode on the other side. This is what produces the frequency.

The minute you clean it with ANY liquid to include water, brake/carb cleaner it develops a film that gets stickie.. bam. fucked up AFM electronics. ;)

[tlo86]

i just took off my intake and sprayed it in.

i don't remember what i used, a friend had it on hand and it just said electric cleaner. he explained to me what it was and what it did but that was months ago.

It is kind of hard to explain what problem i had, the best way to describe it is get like a ball peen hammer and tap the AFM. My car did that, only.. when i was driving in the middle of town.