How to Test a Throttle Position Sensor.

How to test a throttle position sensor (TPS)  with a multimeter. Please like and follow for more content.

Transcript

00:00Hi everyone just a quick video on how to test a throttle position sensor. So what is a throttle

00:06position sensor? Well it obviously tells you the amount of demand that you want as a driver,

00:12whether you want full acceleration or whether you're freewheeling downhill the throttle will

00:16respond. So some are electronically linked, some are mechanically linked. This one's an all

00:20mechanical one so if I turn this throttle cable here that's linked to your pedal you'll see the

00:27butterfly valve there opens. If I was on full acceleration the butterfly valve will be fully

00:31open and more air will be allowed to come through and if it was freewheeling downhill then it would

00:35be fully shut and no air or very little air be allowed to pass through. So how do we test the

00:41throttle position sensor? Well first of all we need the ignition on make sure you've got a healthy

00:44battery and I've set my multimeter to 20 DC volts there so it's gonna be a voltage test. Use your

00:52owner's manual at the other side or the opposite side of your cable you've got a variable resistor

00:59which is basically going to create a different amount of resistance and allow a certain different

01:03amount of voltage through through the sensor itself. So I'm just going to put a few guys down

01:09there. So I've checked the owner's manual and I know which cable to do so first of all this is my

01:15top tip get yourself some of these these are T pins and these are normally for textiles but they're

01:20excellent at plugging into the back of sensors and using them with a multimeter and crocodile clips

01:26especially when you're doing filming so I've checked the wiring diagram one of them is going to need

01:31to live in there and the other one and the other one is going to live in that bottom wire there so

01:39plug that into there. Okay so I've got my two T pins there plugged into my sensor if you can see that

01:47there and then I've got my multimeter set so I'm going to get my crocodile clips if you get these

01:53the wrong way around it doesn't matter you'll just get a negative breathing and the sensor itself is a

01:57five volt sensor so it needs a base voltage of around about half a volt so the ECU knows that the

02:04sensor is still active and working but it won't go any higher than five volts because it's maximum five

02:09volt sensor so you're looking at a range between half a volt and four and a half volts from fully close to fully

02:16open so as you can see I've plugged it on the sensor is fully closed the throttle body is fully closed

02:21and so it's only allowing half a volt or 0.62 of a volt through as I open the throttle now with the

02:29cable you should see that voltage start to increase and eventually if I get to full open throttle the

02:38maximum that will allow is a feedback to the ECU of 4.57 volts and that's fully open if there's any dead

02:50spots in between or any big spikes I'm doing as slow as I can there's any big drops or cutouts then that's

02:55telling you that there's a defective part of your variable resistor on your throttle position sensor

03:03I'm just returning it back down to zero well what will be 0.62 I'd expect

03:11nice and steady

03:15yeah so there you go that's a throttle position sensor and again between half a volt and four and a half volts

03:23and again if you get those two leads the wrong way around it doesn't matter you'll just get a minus figure

03:26I hope that makes sense and I'll see you on the next one