cold idle speed?

[tigeraid]

k, I'm used to work on my own cars and I'm used to working on domestic v8s ... the accord is gonna be a daily driver, and it ran like a top until winter.

Last week, car stalls at a stop light, won't restart. Since I have to work the next day and it's -20 out, I decide to leave it at a garage (first time in my life I ever payed a garage to do anything) ... basically, he found a ton of water in the fuel filter... replaced it, ran gasline antifreeze and cleaner through it, and after that it was fine. It's a tad hard to start in the cold morning, but I'm used to starting carb'd cars--starts, falls to 0 rpm and dies, fires back up the second time and it's all good.

But starting today, I do the exact same thing, and this time the cold idle doesn't kick in (1800 rpm or so)... I come out after warming the car for 5 minutes and it's barely running at around 700 rpm ... drives around fine, but even when it's reasonably warmed up I still have to two foot it coming to intersections. It seems almost random, as at other times I can pedal it for a bit parked, and then it'll go to 1800 rpm and warm up.... real random

But, I'm thinking it may not be a carb problem after all, especially considering it was fine before I brought it to the garage. The battery had died from my attempts to start it, so the garage had to charge the battery. Now it cranks ever so slightly slower in the morning, and more importantly, I see the dash lights dimming with more devices that I turn on (defrost, heater, headlights) ... and the more devices I turn on, the lower the rpm gets.

So I'm thinking it's not carb at all, and the battery just needs a real good charge? Opinions?:pimp:

[Nospeed]

I had this happen to one of my old cars...it might just be your alternator...the fact that it stalled in an intersection and wont start could say alot of things...but when the lights dim, there is something wrong electrical. to check this, run the car, and disconnect the ground from the battery. if the car dies, you know your alternator is shot. also put a volt meter on the battery while it is running, if it reads 14+ volts, it is working fine. id check that if i were you.

[shepherd79]

well, check your ground just to make sure it doesn't have any lose shit. this way you can say it is not your electrical.
most likely it is your carb. it is probably never have been rebuild or replaced.
the best thing to do is to get a kit from auto parts store. I got mine from autozone for like $25-35, can't remember the right price. it took me like 2 hours to rebuild carb and like 1 hour on taking out and putting back. so plan for a day of work.
it worked great after that.

[Greg]

I would check to see that my batter clamps and connection at the alternator were tight first.

Then I'd test my alternator output w/voltmeter @ battery while running.

But you should also test your battery load.

A good way to do this is to go to an auto store, buy a battery load tester ($50), test your cold cranking amps (should be above 800, but it should really be like 1000), and then use the thing to see how many volts your alternator is putting out by leaving it connected (not touching the load switch) while you run the car. You should be getting at least like 13 volts. While you're at it, check to see that the voltage is stable when you rev the car, and that it doesn't drop too much when you turn lights, heater, defroster, etc. on.

Then return the load tester to the store. I did this when I had to test some stuff on my friend's Toyota tercel when she visited me from out of town but then her car kept dying. She had to drive out, and I didn't have the cash to drop $50 on a load tester, so I just bought it w/my credit card and returned it the next day.

Eventually I bought one and kept it cuz I had to check out another friend's car and it's sort-of nice to have, but anyway...

And if all your charging system & battery are up to spec, clean the choke & all linkage w/carb cleaner and see if that helps.

If not then you probably have a vacuum leak or something else bad.

It could be a lot of stuff -- even kinked fuel line or bad fuel filter (carbed cars have 2), improperly adjusted float... it could be LOTS of stuff.

But normally you would have your lights dimn a little bit w/more electrical devices on and your rpm's WOULD drop. When I turn on my defroster my rpm's drop by about 100 - 200 when I'm on high fast idle.