I was driving the kid to school today and my 242 suddenly went from go to crawl. I thought the throttle cable had broken as there was limited throttle reponse, so I opened the hood ans turned the throttle by hand with no response from the engine. After a couple of minutes at idle it started to work normally again, possibly the device starts working when the engine gets some heat in it. I think it is a fuel or smog control device failing. I have experienced this behavior before in my 89 wagon when the Air Mass Meter failed and I was able to creep home. It is a 84 with a B23 engine and automatic, the car has about 180K on the odometer. The wiring harness is bad (new one in trunk!) but it is not giving me trouble that I know of ( I have spliced and/or insulated real bad wires) but could be a contributing factor. The car just completed a four hundred mile road trip this last weekend without a problem so it is fortunate this problem started just two blocks from home. Any idea on where my gremlin might be?
Thanks to you all.
Steve O'Bryan
Chico CA