well after puttering on the daughter's 84 240 for the summer I was driving
it.. loaded with dorm stuff.. back to school.. she wuz riding with the wife.
9/10's of the way up Snoqualmie Pass
http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/cascades/Snoqualmie-Pass/snoqualmie_pass.htm

.... the radiator end cap blew and there I was... I have since replaced the
radiator with a new, all metal, one and have driven said brick all week to work..
so Off I go this coming weekend for another try at driving across the deserts
of eastern Washington to Spokanistan.. (actually a very cool small city with
great restaurants)...
Anyway when it came back to me from last school year it had a searching idle
and sometimes stalled at intersections... so here is what I did..
** removed and cleaned the throttle body and reset the microswitch.
** replaced the in tank fuel pump and sock filter (pumps sounded like they
were laboring)
** Replaced the fuel pressure regulator..
** timed and replaced cap and rotor (pulled plugs and cleaned them)
Every one of these had a positive effect on the searching idle. It has
now gone away and idles pretty flat.
The interesting thing was when I replaced the fuel pressure regulator it
developed a reluctance to starting when cold. It would fire right up and then
die...two to three times. I have run around 1/2 tank of gas with injector
cleaner and the problem has almost gone away.. to where it starts and you
have to feather the gas slightly for a second or two.. but it keeps running
now.. so I am hopefull by the end of the next tank of gas/cleaner mix it will
be gone.
Why the post? well maybe someone else is fighting this idle thing.. and it took
all of the above to cure it... so it was a combination of things that was screwing up the idle. Everytime I did something it improved a bit.. one step at a time it now seems to be running fine.
If you never see another post by me here it will be because I am stranded in
the wilds of Eastern Washington waiting for another car to come along..
(spotty cell service out there)...
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