yet another surging idle problem!!!

[rhandwor]

I just loosened the bolts on the front part of the pan then I was able to remove the timing cover. You might to pry a little. The new timing cover comes with a new gasket.
I used silicon at the bottom corners to prevent leakage and tried to get some under the edge between the pan and gasket. This assumes you have the old type of gasket not the new formed rubber gasket.

[rnj]

I've been soooooooo busy, but i have been tinkering with the car this past week and I tried starting fluid along the manifold and seems to raise the rpms if I spray a lot of fluid on the pass. side. I also sprayed along the driverside exhaust manifold and also seemed to make a slight difference. but wasnt sure if the fumes from the spray are strong enough to cause a difference if they were sucked into the tb, while sprayng on dr side. I also test drove the car with the egr disconected and egr vac. hose plugged. The car when I used the passing gear was really smooth. it hardly jerked like it did b4. Would that point to egr or egr solinoid?

[rnj]

O.K. I checked again for a leak on the manifold before I went and bought the gaskets, and now it seemd not to have an effect on the idle. I am leaning towards the egr valve so I ordered one, we'll see what happesns.

[rnj]

update: I ordered and replaced the egr valve. seemed to make a big diference, but still surging at idle when cold, or when the car has been off for 30 mins up to 3 hrs. and slight surge at about 45-50 mph, but not nearly as bad. I found the driverside manifold bolts were loose, that is probablyt why I kept getting DTC44 every time we drove the car. now it comes on periodically. I'm going to remove all vac ines and closely inspect them also, r&r the timing set, as rhandwor suggested. Does seems like there is a sweet spot in the ignition system. sometimes she runs pretty well, then she don't, weird!

[rnj]

few, back to trying to figure this out. the only thing i had not been able to replace is the timing set. There is quite abit of slack in the chain. I can move the crank back and forth a good 1/2". Will timing throw off the vacuum. I put a vac gauge on it, and it was pretty steady at 19". Then after about 2mins, it went up and down from 20-15. followed same pattern as idle. I want to put a fp tester t figured out how to make a schrader valve.

[rhandwor]

Timing does affect the vacuum. Its plenty warm buy a two piece timing set unless the bottom gear is worn then get a 3 piece set. Normally a two piece set is all you need. You have spent about as much time checking as it would take to do the job. Do it in a garage or where you have plenty of shade. A good weekend job. I use a short mechanics rule when I set the two marks for the timing chain the two marks one on top and one on the bottom. They are closest together at this point. Do this before spending a lot of time. While not normal I had a customers 350 bend a valve when his chain broke possible just burnt valve. I just installed a long block but he didn't have compression in one cylinder and he wanted a long block after installing a chain and the other problem showed up.
Look at a flea market for a shrader valve where you can cut and splice the hose.
I always found if you repair known problems first this normally fixes the problem.

[rnj]

I can find a schrader valve at the flea market!? Never thought of that. So I was thinking to just cut a section out of the fue line and for reading purposes only connect my homemade schrader in place of the section I cut out. Then I could just replace it with fuel hose and clamps, that should be o.k.

Oh, welcome back!

[rhandwor]

You can remove the valve stem and use a couple different size of hose to check pressure. Just replace the valve stem when done. From past reply's you have plenty of fuel. Just fix the timing if you still have a problem then do further checking.

[rhandwor]

How about an update did you ever get it fixed. It is getting cool enough to work on the car.

[rnj]

no update yet, we have 2 cars, the wagon and an alero. the alero needed bearings, had to replace 1 of the 2 twice. so that took up my past 2 weekends. I have found a timing set at az for 80bucks. I probably will pick it up this week and start on the weekend. I did remove the ign. module and it had green/white prongs on the connector that is inside the cap. cleaned the contacts and seemed to drive better under load, but the car just won't stay running if I set the timing to 0* before tdc. I have to advance the timing to where the timing mark is about 2-3 inches left of entire timing mark.

[rhandwor]

They sure went up in price as I used to get them for around $25.00.

[rnj]

well I went to AZ on sat. to p/u timing set, and they were out of stock and wouldn't have any in till wed. So I didn't get to replace it. I do have it apart, and i read a previous post and it stated that the new cover came with gasket. Do I need to buy a new timing chain cover. Can't I just use the old one? And will I need a gear puller for crank gear?

[rhandwor]

You don't need a new cover unless it is damaged leaking oil or bent. I normally just inspected the lower gear and replaced if it was defective. I normally bought two piece sets. A puller is needed to remove the lower gear. Advance Auto and Auto Zone loan tools if you buy parts from them. You could borrow a puller from a friend.

[rnj]

So made some progress. last i left the car with just the timing cover to be pulled off. I pulled the cover off this morning to find that it does have a all steel cam gear. I have the marks lined up and there seems to me that there is a bit of slack in the chain. I'm no mechanic, but to me it seems to have some slack. But now since it looks like it has been replaced, I'm not to sure. I remember when I was checking timing, the mark would jump to the left alot, 1 maybe 2 times every 30 sec. I had to watch it a few times to find out where it was moving to. So that was when I started leaning towards timing chain. but now since the gear is not the plastic coated factory gear, now i'm wondering if it would be something electrical causing the jump in the timing mark. Well, since I do have the front apart, I will change the chain, and the gear. now should I just drop a whole new set in or just go with the cam and chain?

[rnj]

still need to finish installing timing cover etc. etc. etc. But all in all it is going smooth