Idle Air Control Motor

[macdaddy]

Hello!

Our van ain't running worth a darn right now. Most every time that you take your foot off the accelerator, the RPM's drop and it stalls. Even if you're still travelling at speed.

A cousin of mine is a mechanic, but he lives quite far away. What he suggested is that I clean my IAC-motor, but I can't find the darned thing!

Anybody able to help? It's a 1990 Dodge Caravan, V6.

The email he sent me...

You need to clean your IAC motor (Idle Air Control motor), and the throttle plate. The fuel filter is a good idea, but not necessary for that problem. The IAC motor is a small cylindrical shaped motor located close to the throttle plate, bolted on by 2 bolts, with 1 plug-in. Take it apart and clean well with intake cleaner using a rag or paper towel. This should take care of the problem.

To be honest, I'm not even sure what the "throttle plate" is!

Any help would be greatly appreciated - I leave town in a few days and don't want to leave my wife with a van that runs this poorly.

Thanks!

[KC]

I had a Mazda pickup for a while that woudl stop idling, but ran well under load and at speed. It just would idle down and die whenever I stopped. What was happenign was a vaccuum line would come off the hot air bypass valve and basically choke the engine out of air. This valve is normally temperature dependent and will close off air to the motor to force more fuel in to it and help warm it up when its cold.

Check under the hood and see if you have any vaccuum lines hanging loose. It counds like Chrylser uses a small servo motor to control idle mixture settings and this may be flooding out the motor at idle instead of cutting back on fuel flow. Its probably controlled eother by vaccuum or temperature.

[macdaddy]

Thanks, KC.
Turns out that (the moment) I left town, my wife brought it into the shop anyway.
She called me lastnight, several hours after she got it home, to inform me that the driver-side CV joint gave way.

I love racing.
But I hate cars.