Car won't idle

[danzo]

Yesterday my car intermittently would die at idle. Now it is more consistent and won't idle at all but only after it gets off cold idle. From the FSM this can be several things - anyone have any ideas? It may be just a hose that fell off, I haven't checked anything yet.

Another question - has anyone piped their oil through the radiator, i.e. where the auto trans fluid would normally go? I bought a new radiator which has these fittings and didn't know if the rad would hold the oil pressure. I thought this would a great way to increase oil capacity.

Thanks!

[takza]

Loose vac hose will do it for sure. Engine oil thru the rad would probably cool it too much?

[Petros]

most normal driving, even in hot weather, the motor oil is well under optimum temp. No need to cool it further, you build up corrosive compounds when the oil is under temp. Likely pressure would be okay, but I think the best way to increase oil capacity would be to install a remote oil filter and use an extra large filter (there is a fitting that goes where the current filter goes, and it goes to a remote mount that holds an extra large filter).

[danzo]

Problem solved! Hopefully this may help someone else....

After more than a week of feathering the gas pedal at stoplights, I finally got some time to troubleshoot today. My car would run fine on fast idle after a cold start, but as soon as the choke opened it would die when not at speed. Ran fine when not idling.

First I took a few vacuum readings from different locations and there were no leaks (needle steady). So I looked at the fuel system troubleshooting sequence in the FSM "under rough idle or stalls" starting on page 152 (FU-2). Since I have a recently rebuilt carb I assumed the jet clogged/mixture incorrect potential problems were OK. After more testing I realized the first fuel solenoid didn't click as advertised. Fortunately I had two spares lying around, slapped in a good used one and badda-bing, badda-bang! Runs perfectly.

Again BIG thanks to the kind soul who put the FSM on this site!

As far as running oil through the radiator fittings....I probably won't do this since I don't know that my oil is too hot. But under extreme conditions (full throttle, mountain/desert driving) there certainly could be a need to cool the oil more than what our cars do naturally.