The truck just had a tune-up plus a new fuel filter. It starts and runs fine but at stop lights it feels like it is just about to stall. I was thinking of cleaning the fuel injector but after some more research I thought I should go the easy route first. I was thinking changing the IAC valve, TPS, and IAT sensor. My question is which of these would you change first? If I can help it I would rather change the most likely cause and see if it works before buying the others. And if there is anything else I missed please let me know.
rough idle on 94 v-6
- Thread starter threecar
- Start date
Molson02536
New member
Start with cleaning the EGR valve if not replacing it, here is also a link to retieve your DTC codes, if there is a code for your IAT, IAC and TPS. Then address them, if there is no codes then don't replace any of them.
Good luck and post me back, http://www.troublecodes.net/GM/
No codes
And I recently replaced the egr valve. Can the egr valve, IAC, TPS be cleaned with throttle body cleaner? Maybe that would help.
FYI Molson,
I bought this truck new in 1994. I have taken pretty good care of it over the years and have done a lot of work myself and have had the pro's work on it also. I would like to keep it longer as it only has 133,000 miles on it, has a lot of new parts, and it is not my daily driver. But with rusty undercarraige parts like body mounts and uca's, bad ball joints, rough idle I am wondering if now is the time to get rid of it or do I spend a little more $$ and fix these things myself.
And thanks for helping us old Sonoma owners out.
And I recently replaced the egr valve. Can the egr valve, IAC, TPS be cleaned with throttle body cleaner? Maybe that would help.
FYI Molson,
I bought this truck new in 1994. I have taken pretty good care of it over the years and have done a lot of work myself and have had the pro's work on it also. I would like to keep it longer as it only has 133,000 miles on it, has a lot of new parts, and it is not my daily driver. But with rusty undercarraige parts like body mounts and uca's, bad ball joints, rough idle I am wondering if now is the time to get rid of it or do I spend a little more $$ and fix these things myself.
And thanks for helping us old Sonoma owners out.
Molson02536
New member
Keep your Sonoma, my 96 jimmy has over 365,000 miles on it now and still the original engine, transmission, and drive train.
Here is also a link for you if you need parts or just illustration to parts on your Sonoma. http://www.compnine.com/index.php?s=1&catcode=53S&year=1994&modelcode=S&modelid=7076&makecode=LG
Your Sonoma, does it have the W or the Z engine 4.3?? And yes you can clean the parts you mentioned with throttle body cleaner, which is safer then the Carburetor cleaner. The Carb cleaner is to corrosive to the gaskets used on the throttle body.
Once you have managed to clean the IAC, EGR and the TPS, your Sonoma should be running fine again. Have you tried to de-carbon your upper intake with Seafoam or the Oil school way with spraying water down the throttle body with the engine running?? If your not comfortable with the water, use Seafoam and follow the instructions. http://www.seafoamsales.com/
Here is a link on youtube on how to use the Seafoam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG64zxlQ3eo&feature=related
Last edited:
I have the 4.3 "W"
Yes, I do want to keep it. Like having the pickup for home improvement stuff along with suv and wifes car. I will clean those parts today or tomorrow. I have heard of seafoam and after watching a few of the videos I will see about doing that also. Like I said previously, I have some other projects to do on the truck so I will definitely be back asking for more advice. Thanks a lot.
Yes, I do want to keep it. Like having the pickup for home improvement stuff along with suv and wifes car. I will clean those parts today or tomorrow. I have heard of seafoam and after watching a few of the videos I will see about doing that also. Like I said previously, I have some other projects to do on the truck so I will definitely be back asking for more advice. Thanks a lot.
Molson02536
New member
Seafoam
Uses of Seafoam
First I would like to state for the record that seafoam is NOT a power adder. All seafoam does is clean out the gunk inside your engine and injectors, this will do nothing more than restore any horsepower/fuel economy you have lost due to years of dirt and grime inside your engine. Any power you pick up along the way is because it has just been supressed by the filthy engine and is now free again.
If you are losing power and mpg due to carbon buildup, if you are experiencing pinging and if you're having trouble passing emissions test, seafoam may be your answer (yes, seafoam will actually reduce your emissions if carbon buildup is causing dirty exhaust fumes!). Seafoam can be used to pick up a few extra mpg you have lost over the years and reduce or elimiate your engine ping by cleaning out your cylinders!
What You Need to Seafoam Your Engine:
In order to maximize your engine's fuel economy and performance, you should do a full engine treatment. in order to do so, you will need a few things:
- 2 cans of seafoam http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-sea-foam-motor-treatment.html
- 1 can of Seafoam deep creep or Seafoam spray. http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-deep-creep.html http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-sea-foam-spray.html
- flat head screwdriver
- pliers
- 1 long, skinny funnel
okay, now that you have all the necessary tools to complete the job, let's talk about how to use seafoam:
How To Seafoam Your Car:
Part One: Injector Cleaning
This is the easiest part of the process, simply drive to the gas station and completely fill up your tank with 91+ octane gasoline as usual. Take 1 of the 2 cans of seafoam in the requirements above, this can of seafoam will be poured directly into your gas tank. Now, seafoam makes a great product but they didn't think too hard when they designed their can. You need a funnel in order to dump it into your gas tank, do not try to be cool and try and beat gravity by jamming the can into your gas tank. I tried that.
all i got was a car that smelled like gas and wasted seafoam on the ground.
Take the long skinny funnel, put it in your gas tank, shake the can of seafoam up and pour the entire can of seafoam into the tank. then, take your car for a nice ride so the seafoam swishes and mixes in your gas tank. The seafoam will clean out your injectors nicely and try and run this tank pretty low before filling up so you don't dilute the mixture with more gasoline. This way, you get the maximum cleaning power of seafoam.
Part Two: Cleaning Your Oil System
As you all should know, 4.3 vortec require 5.5 quarts of oil. seafoam is to be added directly into your crankcase in order to cleanse the oil. yes, you heard me, you're pouring a foreign mixture directly into your engine oil. This can be scary for newbies. never fear, seafoam is 100% petroleum. It is as harmful to your engine as water is to your skin - not harmful at all. the correct measurement for seafoam is 1.5 ounces per quart of oil in your crankcrase. simple math tells us:
(1.5) X (5.5) = 8.25 ounces
a can of seafoam is 16 ounces, so for simplicity's sake, we'll add half a can directly into the ENGINE OIL spout. NOTE: i recommend pouring the seafoam into your oil when the car is cold. i would not recommend pouring a room temperature liquid into 200+ degree oil after the car is hot. last thing you wanna do is shock your valve springs.
Run the seafoam in your oil for NO MORE THAN 250 miles! seafoam is very aggressive. Your next oil change will be black as satan's heart and likely thicker than usual. I do not recommend running this oil very long in the car as your oil filter is going to have quite the time on its hands and the oil won't be in the best of shape afterwards. i'll say it again. change your oil less than 250 miles after you put seafoam in your crankcase! Personally recommend running it 100 miles, then changing your oil. that should be plenty for the seafoam to get most of the gunk out.
Uses of Seafoam
First I would like to state for the record that seafoam is NOT a power adder. All seafoam does is clean out the gunk inside your engine and injectors, this will do nothing more than restore any horsepower/fuel economy you have lost due to years of dirt and grime inside your engine. Any power you pick up along the way is because it has just been supressed by the filthy engine and is now free again.
If you are losing power and mpg due to carbon buildup, if you are experiencing pinging and if you're having trouble passing emissions test, seafoam may be your answer (yes, seafoam will actually reduce your emissions if carbon buildup is causing dirty exhaust fumes!). Seafoam can be used to pick up a few extra mpg you have lost over the years and reduce or elimiate your engine ping by cleaning out your cylinders!
What You Need to Seafoam Your Engine:
In order to maximize your engine's fuel economy and performance, you should do a full engine treatment. in order to do so, you will need a few things:
- 2 cans of seafoam http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-sea-foam-motor-treatment.html
- 1 can of Seafoam deep creep or Seafoam spray. http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-deep-creep.html http://www.seafoamsales.com/how-to-use-sea-foam-spray.html
- flat head screwdriver
- pliers
- 1 long, skinny funnel
okay, now that you have all the necessary tools to complete the job, let's talk about how to use seafoam:
How To Seafoam Your Car:
Part One: Injector Cleaning
This is the easiest part of the process, simply drive to the gas station and completely fill up your tank with 91+ octane gasoline as usual. Take 1 of the 2 cans of seafoam in the requirements above, this can of seafoam will be poured directly into your gas tank. Now, seafoam makes a great product but they didn't think too hard when they designed their can. You need a funnel in order to dump it into your gas tank, do not try to be cool and try and beat gravity by jamming the can into your gas tank. I tried that.
all i got was a car that smelled like gas and wasted seafoam on the ground. Take the long skinny funnel, put it in your gas tank, shake the can of seafoam up and pour the entire can of seafoam into the tank. then, take your car for a nice ride so the seafoam swishes and mixes in your gas tank. The seafoam will clean out your injectors nicely and try and run this tank pretty low before filling up so you don't dilute the mixture with more gasoline. This way, you get the maximum cleaning power of seafoam.
Part Two: Cleaning Your Oil System
As you all should know, 4.3 vortec require 5.5 quarts of oil. seafoam is to be added directly into your crankcase in order to cleanse the oil. yes, you heard me, you're pouring a foreign mixture directly into your engine oil. This can be scary for newbies. never fear, seafoam is 100% petroleum. It is as harmful to your engine as water is to your skin - not harmful at all. the correct measurement for seafoam is 1.5 ounces per quart of oil in your crankcrase. simple math tells us:
(1.5) X (5.5) = 8.25 ounces
a can of seafoam is 16 ounces, so for simplicity's sake, we'll add half a can directly into the ENGINE OIL spout. NOTE: i recommend pouring the seafoam into your oil when the car is cold. i would not recommend pouring a room temperature liquid into 200+ degree oil after the car is hot. last thing you wanna do is shock your valve springs.
Run the seafoam in your oil for NO MORE THAN 250 miles! seafoam is very aggressive. Your next oil change will be black as satan's heart and likely thicker than usual. I do not recommend running this oil very long in the car as your oil filter is going to have quite the time on its hands and the oil won't be in the best of shape afterwards. i'll say it again. change your oil less than 250 miles after you put seafoam in your crankcase! Personally recommend running it 100 miles, then changing your oil. that should be plenty for the seafoam to get most of the gunk out.
Last edited:
Molson02536
New member
Uses of Seafoam
How To Seafoam Your Car:
Part One: Injector Cleaning
This is the easiest part of the process, simply drive to the gas station and completely fill up your tank with 91+ octane gasoline as usual. Take 1 of the 2 cans of seafoam in the requirements above, this can of seafoam will be poured directly into your gas tank. Now, seafoam makes a great product but they didn't think too hard when they designed their can. You need a funnel in order to dump it into your gas tank, do not try to be cool and try and beat gravity by jamming the can into your gas tank. I tried that.
Take the long skinny funnel, put it in your gas tank, shake the can of seafoam up and pour the entire can of seafoam into the tank. then, take your car for a nice ride so the seafoam swishes and mixes in your gas tank. The seafoam will clean out your injectors nicely and try and run this tank pretty low before filling up so you don't dilute the mixture with more gasoline. This way, you get the maximum cleaning power of seafoam.
Part Two: Cleaning Your Oil System
As you all should know, 4.3 vortec require 5.5 quarts of oil. seafoam is to be added directly into your crankcase in order to cleanse the oil. yes, you heard me, you're pouring a foreign mixture directly into your engine oil. This can be scary for newbies. never fear, seafoam is 100% petroleum. It is as harmful to your engine as water is to your skin - not harmful at all. the correct measurement for seafoam is 1.5 ounces per quart of oil in your crankcrase. simple math tells us:
(1.5) X (5.5) = 8.25 ounces
a can of seafoam is 16 ounces, so for simplicity's sake, we'll add half a can directly into the ENGINE OIL spout. NOTE: i recommend pouring the seafoam into your oil when the car is cold. i would not recommend pouring a room temperature liquid into 200+ degree oil after the car is hot. last thing you wanna do is shock your valve springs.
Run the seafoam in your oil for NO MORE THAN 250 miles! seafoam is very aggressive. Your next oil change will be black as satan's heart and likely thicker than usual. I do not recommend running this oil very long in the car as your oil filter is going to have quite the time on its hands and the oil won't be in the best of shape afterwards. i'll say it again. change your oil less than 250 miles after you put seafoam in your crankcase! Personally recommend running it 100 miles, then changing your oil. that should be plenty for the seafoam to get most of the gunk out.
NOTE: seafoam is O2 sensor safe and will not damage your spark plugs or catalytic converters with responsible use. This means as long as you're not seafoaming your car constantly and using far above the recommended dosages, you should be fine. It's probably good to do this process every 25,000 miles to keep your car in tip-top shape.
First thing you wanna do is start the car and let it warm up until the engine reaches closed loop. Basically, start your car and wait for the engine to warm up to normal operating temperatures (5 - 10 minutes depending on outside temperature). after the engine is nice and warm, turn the car off. Now we're going to disengage the brake booster line.
For this, you may need a pair of pliers and a flat head screwdriver. There is a little metal clip holding the brake booster hose to the brake booster. You want to take a pair of pliers, compress the clip and slide it down the hose a few inches. Now that the clip is out of the way, you need to disengage the brake booster hose. This can be a bear if you've never done this before. My son's Blazer had 210,000 KM on it when i seafoamed it and that sucker was stuck on there tight (it's a vacuum line, it's glued by high pressure). You may need to take the flat head screwdriver and jam it into the vacuum line and wiggle it off the brake booster. This may take a while. It took me a lot of pressure to get the hose off the booster. You may have to pull pretty hard.
Once the hose is off, you're gonna want to find a small funnel that will fit into the brake booster hose. i do not recommend simply jamming the hose into the seafoam and letting the engine suck it up. this makes it very hard to control the amount being sucked up and could flood the engine far too fast causing it to prematurely stall out.
Now that you have a funnel jammed into the brake booster hose, start the car. You'll notice your rpm's are very high, likely around 2000-3000rpms. this is because your brake booster hose being disconnected is causing a massive vacuum leak. You'll be able to feel the engine sucking air down the funnel.
At this point, you have half a can of seafoam left (8 ounces). You should, in your head, divide that into three equal parts. You're going to want to SLOWLY pour the first two thirds of the seafoam left in the can into the engine via the funnel. The engine will start to sputter and choke as you pour in the seafoam.
You DO NOT want your engine to stall out. go as slowly as possible pouring the seafoam into the engine as necessary so the engine does not die. Do this for the first two thirds of the mixture. With the final third of the seafoam, quickly dump it down into the funnel. The idea here is to stall out the motor, suspending the remaining gulp of seafoam in the cylinder banks (don't be alarmed if your engine bay is smoking the entire time this is happening). if your car does not stall, quickly run and turn off the key.
Do not start the car for at least 15-20 minutes. You want the seafoam to soak in the motor good and hard to get all that nasty carbon out of the engine. While the engine is sitting and soaking, with the key out of the ignition of course, get that bottle of seafoam deep creep i told you to buy.
Seafoam deep creep is to be sprayed inside your throttle body. Disconnect your hose running to the throttle body so your throttle body blade is showing. Get a friend to push down on your gas pedal so the throttle blade opens. If you don't have a friend at your disposal, a brick or something will do just fine to hold the gas pedal down, anything to keep the throttle blade open. again, your engine is to be OFF during all this.
Once you can see inside your throttle body opening, spray seafoam deep creep into throttle body, fully soaking the blades, the bottom, top, and up and down into the intake manifold behind the throttle body. Use a good amount of seafoam. Don't be too conservative, but the whole can is far from necessary. Use your Judgement, get it in there nice and deep but there's no need to flood anything!
Reconnect the throttle body hose, the brake booster hose, the clip back on the brake booster line and anything else you may have disturbed during the seafoaming of your car.
Now we will just wait for the remaining time to pass before you can start your car back up. http://www.seafoamsales.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef3HNvxblxQ
Molson:
Thanks for the help. Just wanted to let you know the seafoam treatment worked well. I had some doubts about it but the truck runs better than it has in a long time. I recommended this to a family member and we will be doing this on his dodge pick up soon.
Threecar
Thanks for the help. Just wanted to let you know the seafoam treatment worked well. I had some doubts about it but the truck runs better than it has in a long time. I recommended this to a family member and we will be doing this on his dodge pick up soon.
Threecar