1989 Escort-Stalls very shortly after starting

Hello,

I own a 1989 Escort. I am not the original owner, but it has only had two. Before me it belonged to an old lady who drove it to church and back every Sunday. It had only 32,000 miles on it when I got it two years ago. Now it has a little over 50,000. The problem I am having is very shortly after starting it stalls, unless I keep the idle up. After it warms up, it stays running until I put it in gear and then it stalls again. It is like I need to drive with two feet just to keep the thing running. We (Me and my father) take pretty good care of this care whenever there is a problem we cannot fix or find it goes up to the mechanincs at the end of my street. We have changed many things to try and fix this. The parts we changed include the throttle body, solenoid, pickup coil in distributor, and fuel pump. What else could it be?

Reply to
JoeyD2169
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For starters if you don't have a code reader I would take the car down to the local AutoZone and have them pull the codes, which they do for free, and then post them here. Does the car run ok above say 30 or 40 mph? If so then it might be related to the EGR valve. Have you checked for vacuum leaks?

Just a couple of thoughts

Reply to
CCTGENE

Reply to
JoeyD2169

Idle control valve.

Reply to
Sharon K. Cooke

Without the codes it's difficult to tell, but my guess was and is that you have an EGR valve that is not closing at idle. A few of the classic symptoms for this condition would be:

Engine starts but stalls immediately thereafter when cold. Rough running, surging, hesitation and general poor performance at part-throttle when engine is hot or cold.

For what it's worth

Reply to
CCTGENE

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