those bolt are soft metal and phillips, even with the correct #3 phillips I stripped one out, wish Lexus used hex heads or a nice bolt you could take off with a socket would have been nice.

I gave up trying to get it off, just put everything back on, sprayed the port with carb cleaner, followed it up with a can of compressed air and called it a day.

 

The screws are known to strip out, they are pretty tight.. i usually tap them with a small hammer so break the grip a little. And if they do strip, i just drill them out. There are two screws that hold the plastic part to the base, you can take those off the hold IAC, and use one in place of the stripped one.

 

Guys, if you remove IACV, you will have to replace the rubber gasket. It looks similar to this:



It will buff once exposed to air and won't fit back. It's only $2 and available at any dealer. Part #22215-20010.

Here is more info:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=285766

 

Yeah, I remember I had to use Dremel to make a slot in one of them and unscrewed it using a flat head screwdriver.

 

I also used another method of cleaning. Expose throttle body intake (as you have on your last picture). Disconnect the air line from IACV. Make sure you have disconnected the air line, not the coolant line. Get a kitchen sink hose from Home Depot. Connect it to the bottom of IACV and spray carb cleaner or alkali (purple degreaser from Walmart) into the hose and then blow it thru with compressed air. Repeat, until you see no more crap coming out from the top. Make sure not too much of the stuff gets into your intake; just put some paper towels in there to absorb liquids. I would not recommend cleaning thru rubber hose you already have on your engine -- cleaners can ruin rubber. Use silicone kitchen hose instead.

 

any tips on drilling it out? I tried and went through 2 drill bits, no luck.

 

I would recommend to completely cut off the head of the screw [with a short file or Drimell], pull out IACV and then apply WD40 and to what is left, loosen the thread part of the bolt with pliers and remove the sucker by hand. Then go to Home Depot and buy 4 new metric screws with hex heads.

 

UPDATE:

I sprayed 3 seperate times into the hole as recommened by many on this thread but the car still has the same starting problem.
I also noticed that once I get the car started and it stays on, the idle speed seems to be lower than normal. It is idling around 500 RPM (700-800 RPM was normal before). Not sure what to do next as I have no clue about this issue.

EDIT: IACV seems to be the problem.

 

Oceanview, I wrote up a step by step DIY on how to clean the IACV. The post is for an RX300 (3.0L). Should be similar for the ES300 models. The following post addresses the very same issues you are talking about regarding the stripping of the bolts. Hope this helps.

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums...howtopic=30723

 

I saw that yesturday and did the cleaning myself.
Very helpful for me.

Thanks