if u need to drive it right away then bypass it if not remove the plate and hoses,and remove the materal on the original gasket until u see all metal.then use some sandpaper and lightly sand the plate and the throttle body make sure everything is clean and put a thin coat of black rtv on both sides of the old gasket mate it together and tighten the bolts.i guarentee it will never leak again and p.s. replace the old hose clamps with ones that u can tighten also it is alot easier if u remove the throttle body its really easy to take off 4 bolts

 

In my opinion, it makes no sense to have a throttle heater whatsoever. How does heating the incoming air help anything whatsoever?

 

It seems it would reduce your horsepower as well since delta T is part of the formula>>.....

 

I purchased the kit for 21.95 last week on roverparts.com. It took about 30 minutes total to do the change. I made sure it was cold so there was no built up pressure in the system and not much coolant leaked out. Pretty easy to do and no more leaks. Just make sure you clean up all the residue before you put it all back together. Good luck! Jere

 

Ditto that and I did the bypass after replacing a few leaking gaskets (horrible design btw) on my 99 D2. Well after a few years of bypass with no problems, on a REALLY cold winter day in MT and my throttle got stuck open while rolling down the freeway. By cold I'm talking -15 degrees ambient (not wind chill, air temp). Those temps are rare even for MT but I can only guess that the throttle plate froze in the cruise position since the problem went away after about 30 minutes of run time. It could have been a bad throttle cable but that was a few thousand happy miles ago, and I haven't seen temps go as low since either. I will probably replace the heater next winter... just in case it serves a useful purpose. Will do a new throttle cable as well just to be sure.

 

THIS is EXACTLY why the throttle body heater is there!!!
Under the right conditions, i.e. high humidity and cold temps, the throttle plate will freeze open and you cannot stop or slow down unless you shift the transmission into neutral.
But coming off the expressway at 70 mph are you going to have time to shift into neutral and stop before plowing into the back of another car?

 

X2 on everyone.. but what the F$ck is that pink crap????

 

The pink stuff is concentrated DexCool. I replaced the Heater Plate with the gasket on my 2004 because a Tech at the dealer told me the design had been updated. It had lasted 74,000 miles when I did it, hope it lasts that long again. The only unknown for me on the install was how tight to turn the 3 bolts holding the Heater plate to the throttle body, they are about a 4mm. I was afraid I would snap them off.

 

The my heater plate has been sealed with JB weld, seems to work fine I suppose. That's how it was after purchase.
Change your coolant too man.

 

It's an excitement you don't need. Net- The vast majority of these trucks will never see temps low enough to get a throttle plate frozen stuck open. But IF you live anywhere you get REALLY cold temps, it can and does happen, so keep the throttle body heat installed (-15F was the high with a low of something like -40F, never had a problem on warmer days but ya never know).

No one really has a problem with it being there, we have a problem with it leaking, I've got it plumbed thru a brass elbow which is up against the throttle body now. If I had it to do all over again I'd give the RTV route a try, or the new kit.