Hey all. My truck (97 cc V6 5sp) has recently developed an
intermittently slow idle and an accompanying "check engine"
light. Every once in a while, the idle speed will drop way
down, and the engine stumbles and usually quits. I've read
that one major culprit for this is the idle air control valve,
and one solution is to remove it and clean thoroughly. I removed
mine and sure enough it was pretty gunked up with black sticky
goo. While I had it out, I performed an electrical test on it
as specified in my haynes shop manual. This calls for checking
the resistance across the outer two terminals, and then doing
the same across the inner two terminals. The values are supposed
to be very close to each other, which they were. I re-installed
it, and the truck still did the slow idle/stall. This seems to
happen at any engine temperature. The engine runs fine otherwise.
My shop manual also states that the 1997 model PCM can be
placed in "self diagnostic" mode, allowing me to cheat and extract
any trouble codes without a scan tool. The alleged procedure is
to turn the key ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON (without starting the engine),
and it's supposed flash any trouble codes on the engine light. I
tried this, and my check engine light did NOT flash - but the
number "12" appeared in my digital odo! I was like "uh, ooookay..".
I know that a "12" is the generic trouble code indicating that
the battery has been disconnected at some point (which I had done
at one point to clear the computer, but the check engine light had
since come back on).
So, I guess my reasons for writing this is that I have 2 questions:
(1) Any recommendations on the idle problem?
(2) Anyone have any experience extracting trouble codes from their 97?
As always, any help is appreciated.
Kevin D.
97 cc V6 5sp
3923's, 180 tstat, homebrew K&N
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