'93 Escort Surges & Poor Idle

My '93 1.9 liter has for sometime now idled poorly. Mostly it is on a cold start and gets better after a warm up. The gas needs to be consistantly held down in order for it to stay running until warmed up. After that it can sit and idle but it will idle up and down. When driving and coming to a stop it occasionally will surge forward while slowing down like the gas was pushed down.
I'm thinking this is a sensor issue of some sort but unsure what to try first.
Any suggestions?
Ken

You might try cleaning, or, if necessary, replacing the idle air controller that sits on top of the throttle body. I had similar symptoms on my '91 and doing this cleared things up a lot. Also, check and replace all your vacuum lines if necessary.

ck. the pcv tube at the intake.they concave.
spray intake cleaner near the back of the intake were it comes to the cylinder head near the pressure regulator. if the idle raises you found your leak.

IAC valve, on top of your throttle body, should fix ur problem.

where is the pcv located at?..1.9l

I just swapped out an engine in a 95 Escort with a 1.9 and the idle would jump from 2000 rpm to almost 0 back and forth. I swapped the IAC valve on top of the throttle body and it fixed the problem. Thanks for the help in these posts. Saved me a lot of time and money.

Once I got it running I found that the heater did not work. The temp gage also did not work. I pulled out the thermostat and found it was broken. I will fix that tomorrow and be ready to go.

Thanks.