Stalling - Idle air controller

[endofbaker]

My wife called me twice in the past week to say our 99 SOHC XLT would start but immediately stall. The first time I poured in a bottle of Fuel injector Cleaner, cleaned the air filter and drove it home with my foot always on the gas. It was running fine when I got home. A week later when it happend again, I knew it was more.

The ford dealer said it was likely the idle air controller and to bring it in. Being friday night and with a weekend ahead, I did some research and decided to clean it. It is located under the engine dust cover and looks like a mini can of spray deicer with the scraper on it. Two bolts remove it.

The plunger was stuck to the opening alowing no air to pass at idle (stall). I cleaned the air chambers with carb cleaner and a Q-tip. Now it works fine. The build up of black gunk did it in.

I took the explorer to Hershey, Gettysburg and Lancaster this weekend. Ran fine.

This might be a good item to clean on a 36,000 mile schedule.

 

[Alec]

Yup, the IAC is a common problem on our trucks. Many many posts about it on this site.

If your intake starts making a howling noise at idle, that also means your IAC needs to be cleaned or replaced.

 

[BIG COUNTRY]

yea...that is what happened to mine a few months back...the damn mechanic said that it might be the idler...then he said...air filter particles got into the engine and perhaps caused some damage....then low coolant in overflow bottle...then low compression causing one of the cylilnders weigh 15lbs lesser than the rest of them...he was talking up a storm...estimating $1,000-2,000 if it was one of the cylilnders...i was like god damn!!! Let me go wipe my self cuz i think i just **** myself...i just got this SOB 3 months ago...then a couple days later he said it was the IAC...because of that, of course there is not gonna be good compression cuz if was messing up in the first place! I ended up having to pay $150 after all that crap just to replace an IAC...man i wish i knew this site before i took it there...so far i only had to pay $350 for crap on it in the first few months on having this explorer...i never had any problems in any other vehicle i owned...