Nissan Repair: eratic and non idling 1999 sentra, mass air flow sensor, mass air flow

Question
I have  a 99 sentra gxe 1.6L 5-speed. About 3 days ago I was driving as normal. I got to a stop light and the car died. It would no longer idle but ran very smoothly otherwise. A few minutes after it first did this I revved the engine pretty high in neutral and for about a day it idled just fine. It stopped idling on its own again the next day so I repeated... same results. I changed the feul filter and ran some Lucas fuel injector cleaner through it. Today all of a sudden it started iding very irratically, from 700 - 1800 RPM up and down. Then all of a sudden it would not idle again. I revved the engine very high for a few seconds and now it is idling well. Any ideas on what I should do? Thanks

Answer
Brian,

You need to clean the throttle body first and then, if it does not idle properly, check the throttle position switch and idle air control valve.  I bet it is just that the throttle ports are clogged up as that is usual since the age of the vehicle.  Berrymans B12 cleaner is what I use.  Remove the intake hose and clean the throttle plates and all the ports.  You will not be able to run the engine while you are cleaning it.  Also, do ont get the cleaner on the throttle position switch or the mass air flow sensor.  Reassemble the intake hose and it will be flooded so it will take a few attempts to get it to start and you will have to push on the gas to give it enough air to overcome all that cleaner.  It will clear up after a few seconds.