90 Stanza Bucking/Idle Issue

[tinaslynn]

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Ok, here we go again.. after fixing a previous problem, now I'm stuck on something else...Got a 90 stanza, manual transmission, 4 cyl

In the last couple of weeks it started bucking, especially on decceleration... progressively got worse... it has always idled funny, but now it surges and will idle so low it almost goes dead.. today was first day it actually tried to die on me in first gear taking off... as long as I got the rpm's up, it would go fine.. clutch shifts fine and everything else seems to be in order...

Only two things I can think of are the TPS and the oil in the distributor (yes the seal is bad and has had oil in it for some time now)... Gonna clean the distributor out tonight and check things out there... my question is if the next step would be to look at the TPS or maybe O2 sensor?

Thanks for any ideas you all can give....

ps: timing chain has less than 20k miles on it.. replaced it when guides went out about 3 years ago (but not driven much for 2 years)
Modified by tinaslynn at 12:27 PM 3/31/2006

[180fan]

Yeah my first guess would be the tps.

[tinaslynn]

Ok, well I fixed part of the idle problem.. it was a vacuum hose off... replaced the hose... still idles a bit high/surging at times, but nothing out the ordinary..

Still the bucking issue... and trying to go dead after driving several miles...

This problem seemed to go away for a couple days after cleaning out the distributor, but hard to tell as its intermittent...

Does oil in the distributor cause such a bad buck problem and/or trying to go dead in neutral????

Thanks for any help....