Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 08:00 pm, by: Tume Penttinen(Matsuda)
I was suffering from low idle and stuttering for a year now but last week I suddenly had an idea.
When I bought the car the idle was ok but after maintenance it suddenly went down to 450-500rpm and started missfiring slightly.
I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but during that maintenance, I replaced the coolant so I thought there might be some air bubbles in the system somewhere.
So last saturday I dropped by my friend's garage and we drove the car in a slope so that the front was slightly lifted. We took a clear plastic bottle and cut off the bottom and stuck it on top the radiator so that it replaced the radiator cap. We had to use some duct tape to seal it properly.
Then we poured some coolant into the bottle to see if we can squeeze out some air (that's why you should use a clear bottle). We started the car and let it idle for a while and made sure the aircon was set to max HOT. We squeezed some of the coolant tubes and saw some bubbles coming out. Not much though so we revved up the engine to around 6krpms several times and each time there was a burst of air bubbles coming out of the system. After a while we only got a bubble or two coming out with each rev so we took the bottle out and replaced the cap.
I have to note that after two or three times of reving it, the idle was already normal! And in case I failed in expressing myself in English, we revved it to 6000rpm in bursts so after reaching 6k, we let it go back to idle.
Anyway, that fixed my idle! And god, it's so much better to drive now..
PS. Sorry for starting a new thread about this..
Merry Christmas and happy new year to all from Finland!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 09:24 am, by: Cihan Aday(Cihan)
I've been disconnecting the heater hose before filling coolant from the radiator with the engine running as a good method. Once at operating temp and the thermostat opens not much changes as both sides are full of coolant already. Then the heater is switched on to hot, and rad topped up.