1990 Escort runs rough and stalls when cold

[tmurray]

I have spent considerable money with my local mechanic and a Ford service dept. and neither can find the cause of this problem which started only recently.

When the engin is cold it will run rough, cough and stall out. It seems to run smooth if the RPMs are raised off of idle during this time but if the throttle is moved even slightly in or out it will die for a second and then start to run smooth again. As the engine warms up it slowly runs better. Once fully warmed up it runs almost perfectly with only the odd hesitation off of idle.

I noticed that while it is cold and running rough the injector will intermitently squirt large amounts of fuel into the throttle body which seems to be causing the stalling. The first mechanic did a spark check and found intermitent lack of spark coinciding with stalling. I don't know which is causing what but my guess is either the throttle position sensor is bad or the idle control motor needs to be replaced. However, no codes are stored by the computer.

Fuel pressure is OK. The coolant temp sensor seems to be fine.

I am open to any ideas. I can't afford to pay Ford $96 per hour on a witch hunt.

Help!!!