July 3, 200817 yr Just started experiencing this the other day... Faulty fuel pump? Vac leak? Bad coil? Is strange that it will idle fine when warm, but you need foot on gas (only at 1000rpm) to stop it quitting on idle until then? Any off-the-bat suggestions before I delve into a mass of troubleshooting techniques? Steve
July 3, 200817 yr My EA82 had a similar problem this winter and it was the coolant temp sensor. Does the car feel like its running rich when its cold? If it is, the coolant temp sensor is likely bad and the computer is delivering too much fuel for the cold engine temp. Its easy to test, look in your manual and see what the correct operating resistance is supposed to be for the sensor. Go to radioshack and buy an approporaite resistor and plug it in instead of the sensor. Get a resistor in the middle range of operating temp for the test. My car went from being undrivable while cold, to purring smooth with the resistor. A few weeks later I got a new sensor from rock auto for ~50 bucks. The resistor worked fine though for a little while.
July 3, 200817 yr is the choke working? it might have come out of adjustment... mine used to have that problem, but I just replaced the entire carb since it had a lot of shaft play anyways... --Spiffy
July 3, 200817 yr Your choke is not operating correctly, or the idle-up cam is not operating. They are non-trivially interconnected devices so I would start by removeing the choke spring/heater housing for a look. GD
July 4, 200817 yr egr stuck open? inspect the egr vac circuit and solenoid. you may have to take it off and clean all the crap out of it.
July 4, 200817 yr Author Cheers all, Drugh - I wish the EA81 was computer controlled. I'm gonna do the SPFI swap when I find a good donor. The older subes are purely mechanical with most actuators driven by vacuum, not a computer. Thanks tho. Spiff - the one thing I did check was take off the air cleaner cover and make sure the choke plate was in its diagonal position - which it was. Maybe not all the way closed though..... GD - I'll have a peek inside. I know I'm gonna havta drill out the rivets and screw the cover back on so that was gonna be my last test Miles - I will check the EGR - definately haven't cleaned that sucker up - should have done that when I had my engine out - live and learn... Steve
July 4, 200817 yr Spiff - the one thing I did check was take off the air cleaner cover and make sure the choke plate was in its diagonal position - which it was. Maybe not all the way closed though..... GD - I'll have a peek inside. I know I'm gonna havta drill out the rivets and screw the cover back on so that was gonna be my last test It should be completely closed when cold. But that doesn't mean the fast idle cam is working. Sounds like it is not as it should idle around 2,000 RPM when cold anyway. Drilling the rivets is easy - 1/4" bit will pop the heads right off then you just drive out the rivet with a punch. Pan head phillips self tappers are the way to go for putting it back on. GD
July 6, 200817 yr Author Thanks for advice all, it was the EGR. Cleaned it up today and popped it back on with a new gasket and all is wonderful and smooth again. (I can't even tell the engine is running when the A/C is on because that is the load configuration where I have the idle speed set to 800). Hurrah for 200k service, new motor and tranny mounts Steve
July 22, 200817 yr Author An update.... This problem re-occured so I blocked off the EGR completely. Still had problems. I'd forgotten this had happened before. Symptoms start off infrequent and progressively get worse. I pulled the carb off today, lo-and-behold... The old coolant getting past the gasket problem. (Should have remembered from last time but I've had to fix so much stuff lately it slipped my mind). I had put a custom cut gasket below the spacer and the felpro one above the spacer... The only thing I did (as an experiment if I remember rightly) was to NOT cut out the hole for the coolant passage to see if this would completely seal it off. I guess it didn't because water gradually made its way under the gasket and into the intake. Maybe if I'd tightened those front two carb mounting bolts a little tighter?????.... Anyway, cut out two new gaskets today (with coolant holes this time!) and installed a recon carb that came with the car (only had 1 choke pull off compared to the original). Will reply back if I have any more problems but that should fix the stall on idle problem - for now at least, until the water gets past those gaskets again Steve
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