Investigating a recurring stumble at idle on 1998 Escort. This "went away" for a while after putting it in for service, then came back.
Found that a lot of air was leaking around the outlet pipe of the air cleaner, pulled it all apart and cleaned the joint, screwed it up tight and that seems to have made a big difference to idle performance.
However something is weird about the PCV valve.
Please look at (it's a hires photo, zoom in). Around the center, between cyl head cover and distributor, you see the PCV valve. The "sock" clamped onto it is something the repair shop put on. Follow the pipe down and you see there is oil gleaming around the bottom of the pipe, where it goes into the engine block.
The bottom (fat) end of the valve used to be held by some piece of pipe or a molded rubber adapter that matches the wide OD of the fat valve to the thin vacuum line that runs down to the engine block. The repair shop broke this piece and the "sock" over everything is a nasty hack that is now leaking oil. I don't recall seeing oil around there before they messed with it.
I have a new valve but not sure how it was originally fit... I am guessing the valve originally pressed into a grommet down the bottom, and a single thin vacuum line ran all the way up from there?? Is that right, or is there a standard piece that adapts ~1/4" vacuum line to the fat side of a push-in PCV valve? Searching for "escort PCV valve grommet" shows me pictures of something not much bigger than an O-ring.
Thanks.