I have a 89, 2.3, 4wd, Ok when i cold start it, it fires right up and idle's fine, then when i go to back out of the driveway it idle's up and down a few times (almost to the point of stalling), then going down the road within about the first mile from home, when i let off the gas the idle drops way down, check engine light comes on then it will stall if i dont give it a little gas. Then after about the first mile its stops all of that and just idle's up and down, some times stalls, seems to have less power, Once the truck is good and warm it usually just high idles at about 1500 rpms, but often stalls as soon as i press the clutch to stop or shift. So the other day i took starting fuild around all the vac hoses and couldnt find a leak, i ran seafoam straight through the intake to clean it, pulled off air box tube at intake and covered up intake with peice of cardboard and the truck didnt stall? so its got to be a vac leak some where right? since its getting air some where to keep running? but also some how i am getting oil from the engine in my air intake? when i took the hoses off it had about 1 oz oil in it, cleaned it out, was fine, then once i covered the intake with cardboard again it filled back up with oil? Anyone have any idea's of things to do? Any tips or advice would be great! thanks Darrell

 

Not sure about the idling problems you're having, but I think I know where the oil is coming from in your intake. If your truck is like mine, there's a rubber hose in the valve cover, right behind where you add oil that goes up to the throttle body. When I pulled my intake tube off, mine had oil in it also. At idle, the engine doesn't need much air to run. It can still pull air through that tube from the valve cover and through the pcv valve. It must be pulling some oil up that tube when you block off the intake. You might ahve your truck hooked up to a code reader to see why the check engine light is on. If you read one of my posts about trouble codes, someone posted a link on how to get the code your self. Hope this helps.

 

Well that sounds like the oil problem, but my check engine light doesnt stay on, it comes on when the truck tries to stall, then goes back off! Also, could the Air Idle Control cause this? or the EGR Vaccum Soleniod? Im off tomorrow so I'm gonna replace those two things and see what happens from there! Any more advice or tips would be helpful, this truck is an 89 and only has 96k on it so im trying to get all i can out of it! Thanks again Darrell

 

I changed the air idle control valve yesterday and it fixed my problems! thanks for any help!!!

 

Ok, so i posted saying the problem was fixed! Just four days after i started driving the truck for work again, it started the same problems, had no clue what to do next, so i changed the throttle postioning sensor, cleaned throttle body, cleaned manifold, replaced all gaskets between the parts listed, also since i replaced the computer about 8 months ago and it was still under warranty i replaced that again for free, just incase it was an issue with it! Now I'v been driving the truck for 2 days and its been running great since, milage is back to normal, so hopefully the problem is finally fixed! If anything eles comes up ill post more or what not just for a reference if anyone eles has similar problems!