Car trouble.(solved I guess)

Khavall

So I drive an '85(I think) Chrystler New Yorker. I've had my issues with it in the past(fan was always on, would drain the battery, serpentine belt fell off at one point, fun stuff), but that's all been fixed and it should be in normal working order.

Well yesterday, I noticed that it was, while sitting and off, making a noise like it was when the fan was on, so I turned it on to see if it would still start.. no dice, it seemed like the battery was out, and the noise had stopped. Well, I charged it, and even rode my motorcycle in this morning. And then this afternoon I needed it again to cart an Amp back and forth, and I get in and as soon as it starts it dies. Now, I discovered that it can perfectly fine run as long as my foot's on the gas, but as soon as I try to let it idle, the engine dies. It just stops revving right there.

My first idea was that since it rained like crazy last night I might have water in the tank, so I got two things of Dry Gas, put them in, and revved it for about 5 minutes. Then I took my foot off the gas and.... dies again.

Now, I managed to get the amp to the people who are borrowing it, and I can get around just fine on my motorcycle for now, but I'm moving at the end of the week(not too far), so I kind of need the car to work as a car.

any ideas?


EDIT: After it sat for about an hour I tried it agian, and it was idling and looking promising, though feeling like the idling was about ready to die at any moment, and then when the rpms got a tiny bit low when I tried to move it up the slightly-slanted driveway, it died again. I tried revving it for a bit again just to make sure the drygas was working, and then as soon as I stopped it died again.

DjCalvin

If you can keep the rpms a hundred rpm or so above idle and it doesn't stall.. that sounds like the idle air control valve which would be attached to the throttle body. (based upon year)
Been forever since I was under the hood of my daytona turbo Z growing up but I had that happen once and I cleaned the valve and it was as good as new.

Khavall

Allright, I'll take a look at that. Yeah, I barely need to touch the throttle and the thing stays fine, and I was just out there again with it and it just every time it idled would feel like it was about to stall, then come back. Until, again I started going up the driveway and let it idle in Drive, and then it went kaput again.

Dhalphir

I had this problem with my 92 Prelude three years ago, it would stall upon idle, turned out to be the airflow when at idle. trip to a mechanic, cost me $250 for the part and a carton of beer to my mechanic mate for doing the work.

Project Mayhem

I had that same issue in a 2001 Ranger and it turned out to be a hose leak somewheres, cost me about 180 to replace the hose.

a penguin

Yeah, check hoses. I had a similar problem in an old celica, and it was the hose that runs from the intake air sensor to the...erm...my brain fails me. Intake manifold. Or whatever. I was too poor to buy a new hose, so I fixed it with some quicksteel and duct tape. Not that I would recommend that.

3drage

My parents had a New Yorker and it seemed prone to catastrophic failure....i.e. when one thing broke, multiple things related also broke. They had nothing but problems until they eventually gave up and just got a new car.

Mmmm... Cocks...

Similar problem with a '94 Blazer, give it time to idle and it would die.
Mechanic said it would be $texas.

One of the younger mechanics asked me if I filled up at WaWa recently, I had.
He told me to go to a Sunoco, fill up on their ultra premium and throw in some injector cleaner. Then I was to promptly floor it down route 1.

Never gave me a problem again.

YMMV

Khavall

Allright.... well that was weird.

Drove it in today since I had to pick up my stupid amp, and it was dying the way down the street, so I turned to a smaller road and started it, revved it... all that shit, it was really terrible, I was approaching lights in neutral revving the engine and keeping it at rev to make lights and go down hills without having to restart it, ended up thinking that I'd get the amp from the girl some other time and miss the performance...

Then as soon as I turned near the road to my house it stopped feeling like it was going to die.

So I drove it in, and it didn't die at all. Then coming out of the show I started it up without revving it and it worked perfectly, and it came home just fine.


So solved I guess?

Dhalphir

cars rarely fix themselves. its likely to re-occur

Khavall

Dhalphir wrote: »

cars rarely fix themselves. its likely to re-occur

Well right now my theory is that it was water in the gas tank, since when I was growing up my mom's car would do the same thing after it rained a lot, and that I just hadn't worked it through the gas tank. If it happens again I'll look at the hoses more closely(I already had looked at them all and they seemed fine), but It would fix itself if it was the water.

L Ron Howard

Change your fuel filter.