idle screw does nothing. what now. dies when started cold and idles at 800 warm. want to raise it too 12 or 1500. used to think it had to do with the power steering deal cause they both weren't working and i know they are related. But I got the power steering fixed today and the idle is still off. The screw that I think is supposed to adjust the idle does nothing. spins up and down but does nothing. used to work before the head gasket/timing adventure

 

Welcome to YT, Skater.

Up and down? I think you're messing with the A/C idle up valve. Large hex head top with a large spring? Leave that alone, for now.

The idle adjustment screw is located on the side of your throttle body.....a large flat head screw. But, leave that alone for now. Your idle is supposed to be 750-800rpm.

The only way the PS and idle are related is that the PS system relies on vacuum to operate the way it's designed. If there's a vacuum loss somewhere in that system....namely the two hoses that go to it and the valve they connect to...it will throw off the idle.

You said the "headgasket/timing adventure". Did you recently replace all of that recently?

 

could my disrtibutor be off still? never did know for sure if i did it right. Yeah, i just finished doing the head gasket/timing a few days ago. Drives ok, just chugs if that's the word.

 

did you short the computer when you did the timing??? if you didnt then thats why its still all messed up

 

I think I solved the problem. My father-in-law was listening to it run and thought it sounded like it was sucking air. He sprayed starting fluid on different hoses and stuff and all of a sudden the rpm's went up for a second. I did some searching and found that a gasket tab had been folded up and wasn't sealing. Fixed that and now the idle adjustment screw works great! Idles nicely at 800 rpms.