Surging idle

[SLR]

Well after a few days of diking about with the problem of my 85 3.2 sounding like a motor bike on start up from cold and some times when warm. I replaced the engine breather hoses, the hoses to and out of the idle valve, had the valve off a number of times to clean it plus squirt WD40 in there and still no not fixed. I swore at it, hit it with a hammer, threatened the eat it's first born, had a beer with it, showed it my tat, some very wise man posted a reply to this question and suggested that it may be running to rich. So I jumped the circuit and got the idle speed right (by the car rev counter) still no fix. then repeated the procedure and finished the idle with out the jump lead, about 950 rpm, but this time the revving had all most stopped. I then tweaked the idle again to about 875 rpm and now it's 90% ok, I have ended up leaning the engine out a bit.
Thanks to the wise man.
Steve.

[jlex]

Sounds like you just adjusted the idle instead of leaning the car out.
To do it right, you'd need a gas analyzer to check out the exhaust gasses.
The adjustment is made with an alan wrench under the mass airflow sensor box.
Ever fiddled around with that?

[Rich Gas]

Jlex did you read his whole post? Good job...I let mine surge just a bit when warm...better a little rich.

[SLR]

Yea thanks I was a bit confused about that but what ever I did it worked, to much reading on the subject and all the different opinions, though I did not the mixture adjustment was the allen key.

[jlex]

Originally Posted by Rich Gas

Jlex did you read his whole post? Good job...I let mine surge just a bit when warm...better a little rich.

I thought I understood what he said, namely, that he thought he was leaning the engine out by adjusting the idle. If he really did lean it out, I would have expected the procedure he used would have been as detailed as his effort to adjust idle. It didn't seem to indicate a CO2 mixture adjustment was made....

[jlex]

Originally Posted by SLR

Yea thanks I was a bit confused about that but what ever I did it worked, to much reading on the subject and all the different opinions, though I did not the mixture adjustment was the allen key.

Yeah, you may not have had a mixture problem... The idle RPM's for some reason are real critical on these 3.2's. Glad you nailed it. If it acts up in future, you may want to think about taking it to a shop w/ an exhaust gas analyzer to see if an adjustment there is necessary.

[Rich Gas]

Jlex, yeah you're right...not clear. SLR, did you change your mixture settings using the 3mm allen
key on the AFM?