jackr67

1990 80 4cyl w/ 210k miles

Car was running great, suddenly started stalling at idle all the time. Took giving it gas to get it to re-start, and often the idle would be incredibly low - giving it gas had no effect, just had to wait for it to rise on it's own then the car drove just like normal. So long as I could keep it from dropping to idle, no noticeable effects.

Got to be basically undriveable - stalled out every time at idle, almost impossible to get it to respond to throttle when restarted.

Replaced the idle stabilizer with a known good one, now the car starts right up.

However, the idle goes straight to 1900rpm and stays there. It does not drop; let it run for a couple minutes, ocassionally tapping the throttle, hoping it would come down.

Unplugging the idle stabilizer has no effect.
Unplugging the throttle switch has no effect.

Any chance that to compensate for a failing idle stabilizer the PO had the idle adjusted up incredibly high?

What else could cause this?

Thanks!

TabulaRasa

>>ocassionally tapping the throttle, hoping it would come down.<<

This is the key symptom... Spray a tiny amount of lube on the moving parts of the ISV.

>>Any chance that to compensate for a failing idle stabilizer the PO had the idle adjusted up incredibly high?<<

Yep, try turning the idle screw down. The CO probably needs to be adjusted too.

jackr67

Well, that was me tapping the throttle - it held absolutely steady @ 1900rpm all by itself. I was sort of hoping it had gotten stuck (or would step down like an old carb) so I'd blip the throttle every so often to try and get it to notch down to a lower idle, with no luck.

How does one adjust the idle and the CO on the car?