Capt. Howdy
New Member
- Joined
- August 20, 2009
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- beckley wv
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 sport
Hello all. This is my first post. I have no idea where to post this or how to post this. Frankly i don't have the time to figure it out right now. I'm lucky that i've made it this far. Most of my disc space in my brain is used for solving problems that gets my hands dirty,bones broken or nice hot chunks of solder in my eye. Recently i experinced idling problems with my 98 explorer sport. I searched this site for similar problems and found many. I also found many helpful folks who took the time to offer suggestions (can't remember the names of those who helped me,so thanks to all) and few that posted resolutions to their problems. Maybe the helpful folks can help me out and post my fix where it belongs. Here we go with my scenario. 1998 Explorer sport 84.299.8 miles. On 8/15/09 the idling started to fluctuate between 1k and 1.7k. Temp guage stayed in the middle of the guage but but fluctuated 1/8" up or down (in sync. with idling increase) and never concerned me with an overheat. Also the shifting seemed a little "off ". Cleaned IAC annd MAF, no help no harm, i was stumped. Long story short. The hose leading from the radiator overflow was clogged, resavoir was at the correct level but the radiator was 1 Gal. low. I figure that the computer was increasing the idle speed to make the fan turn faster to compensate for the lack of coolant. I added coolant, problem solved. My 4.0 idles nicely at 700 rpm. MPG is improved, shifting is clean and crisp. Conclusion: A faulty thermostat, collapsed radiator hose or anything to do with the cooling may be something you guys want to check out when idling is a problem.
