Do you have pictures of what Carlos did?

I don't but he may have taken pics.

Sucess so far. I pulled the plenum and removed the shaft and measured all bushing specs, along the way i stripped the heads of 3 of the butterfly screws and both screws that held the bracket which holds the shaft in.For temporary fix i placed a nickle over the shaft hole with RTV and used the shaft bracket to hold it in place. I havent noticed any difference in performance yet. I found some possible replacement (plastic sleeves)bushings if you still have the plastic inner bushings that went along the inside beween butterfly valves for $.95 each. I am using plastic for the center bushings because that was what is there and less damaging if they somehow break loose.
http://www.igus.com/iPro/iPro_02_0001_0000_USen.htm?c=US&l=en
I have the following measurements
Center shaft bushing OD. 11.69 mm
Center Shaft ID 10.65 mm
Rear Bushing OD 12.20 mm
Rear Bushing ID 11.29 mm
Front Inner 11.93 mm
Frnt OD 12.21 mm.
I am going to look for a bronze alloy for the front bushing and i will let people know how they work out. I took a picture of my nice nickle fix but cant figure out how to post a picture.

I know this is an old post but I thought I'd post a comment to add to the discussion. About 30,000 miles ago I removed the butterfly shaft, butterflies and vacuum actuator and plugged the fore and aft holes with JB Weld.

The truck runs fine although I may have noticed a torque decrease just off idle. Not really sure though.

I would like to replace the system by purchasing a new plenum, but that will have to wait till I have the money, which may be never.

I would also like to experiement with it by temporarily sealing the butterfly valves closed with small aluminum plates and some tig spot welds to see what the performance and economy is like.

Right now I get about 15-18 around town with 33x12.5x15 BFG all terrains.

The only issue I ever had was trying to get smogged in CA. The tech gave me a fail-fix-and-return for having a golf tee in the vacuum line to the missing butterfly actuator. I told him it wasn't required, but he still failed me. I removed the tee and fed the line back into the small vacuum canister on the passenger side resevoir so it essentially looped back into itself. He passed me. What a load of crap.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!



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