Jake11

I have a 1997 xe 4 cyl pickup. Last week It just went dead on me as I had shifted into neutral and was costing in my driveway. It does 2 things now, It will randomly not idle, you might stop at a redlight and it might idle ok for a minute then it just goes dead. Sometimes the rpm will start to fluctuate from 500 to about 800 then it will just die. It cranks right back up, if it does it going down the road when you are coasting you can just let out on the clutch and it will start right back up. It has not given a service engine soon light. Seems to not idle at time worse than others, at times it goes dead on idle almost immediately, and other times it might idle for a minute before it goes dead. The other thing it does is, when you crank it when the engine is cold, you can run it till the temp gauge gets approx, 1/4 of the way and it will act as if it is running out of gas. It only does it this one time and only last about 3 to 4 seconds, then it runs fine down the road, just does that sputtering on the warm up the one time, might be when the computer actually kicks in, not really sure. I have felt some surging at times running about 55 to 60, seems to take that in spells, I think when I feel the surging is the time it will not idle also if I would just clutch it and let it coast. I felt the bottom radiator hose today and it did not seem to be very warm, thought maybe it was not getting warm enough. Put another thermostat in today, but did not change anything. The Egr valve seems to be working ok, Went to a mecanic friend today and he pulled the connectors off the tps sensor and striped the tape off and looked to make sure he saw no pinched or naked wires. He also unplugged to connectors by the intake next to the throttle body and did the same to them. HE said they looked ok also. He even cleaned the butterfly in the throttle body. It was acting up at his house, it might idle a minute before it would quite, and at times it would idle maybe 10 seconds.He also looked at the wires on the air temp sensor, said they looked ok to him also. Oh, we also cut the a/c on and it still would do it at a idle, that did not seem to make any difference. I replace the fuel filter last week also. Hoping someone had the same experience that could lead to some insight. Sorry this is so long. Thanks in advance