OP
OP
Well over the weekend I pulled the TB and looked at those gears, there is no indication or timing marks to indicate that they must be synced at a certain clocked position. And IMO there should be no need to as long as the butterfly is in it's centered spring loaded position then it should not matter what position the intermediate gear is in. So anybody finding their selves in that position need not worry about that even though there is a tech write up that comes in Google search that states "if the intermediate gear falls out order a new TB unit." I call total bull on that statement unless the gear is somehow damaged from the impact of the fall.
That being said I was still paranoid a the time about it so I had 2 choices. Take it to a shop to have the Tech 2 scanner relearn the idle forcefully. Or buy a new TB unit and replace the one that was tampered with. Only shop in town is a Pep Boys and they are notorious for taking advantage of anybody they can in their service department. I actually sat at a red light reeling which way to go on this. I was afraid even if I took it in for re-calibration they would insist I replace the TB unit.
I took a chance and bought a new unit for $200 from an out of town Autozone. (Pep Boys did not show they even sold one for some reason.) I brought it home and installed and it did the same damn thing as the old one. And the standard re-learn procedure would not accept it.
Thus I was up some creek with no paddle and had no choice but to go to Pep Boys. I pulled right up to the service bays and walked past all the dumb looking ones and picked the guy with no uniform and covered in grease. Told him the situation and he said "I know how to relearn the idle with our machine for you."
Only problem was I had to wait 3 hours because he had 2 jobs ahead of me. I did not care, I wanted that man on the job and I waited. And he took care of it and it runs beautiful now. They charged me $60 bucks. I am now enjoying my Tahoe, my baby is ok now.
As Tim mentioned above the computer is so used to the caked up throttle body readings over the years that cleaning it drastically affects the idle settings in some situations, especially on my rig with 300 K on the clock. You can drive it forever and hope it eventually relearns, or do the re-learn at home procedure. But if that doesn't work I advise taking it to get reprogrammed for the $60 bucks and have peace of mind. I am a back yard mechanic living pay check to pay check so I hope this info helps anybody else in a similar situation. Definitely was a frustrating and expensive lesson.
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