robw01

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this...

My car is in storage for the winter. Every couple weeks I fire up the engine and let it idle up to operating temperature. The last time I did this it was really cold (single digit temps.) Put clutch in... pressed start button... engine fired (now idling at 2K rpm)... let out clutch... engine stalled! (And no... it was not in gear. )

I fired it up again and slowly let the clutch out. The engine bogged a bit during the pedal travel, but once the clutch was engaged it was fine. Once the car warmed up a bit everything was back to normal.

All i can figure is that the gearbox oil was so viscous from the cold that the spinning input shaft caused enough friction to stop the motor. (That's pretty scary to me!) Has anyone else noticed this? Should I be concerned? I'll probably have the gearbox oil replaced with the Spring oil change just to be on the safe side.

PS - I've also noticed during normal weather that the engine will bog ever so slightly when I let out the clutch after starting the engine. Again, these effects go away after things get warmed up.

mas

What if you just keep the clutch in for a while? My car has stalled a couple of times on cold winter mornings but I think it's just and Idle/Air/Fuel issue not a clutch issue cause even if I keep the clutch in the car still stalls - i.e. clutch in, start the car, RPMs go to 2K then drop all the way down and the engine dies. Sometimes it does not stall but almost wants to and then the rpms come back to 2K.

Another way to check is: once the car starts and you let the clutch out without stalling, tap the gas pedal a little bit and let go right away - on my car the rpms go way below 1K and and then back to 2K (or 1K if it's warmed up).

I've also noticed that once the car warms up completely the RPMs fluctuate by one "bar" and you can visually see this. I'm not talking about when the fan kicks in or there's other electrical load, just steady state.

I'm totally frustrated with these RPM issues. The more I look into this the worst it seems. :-(

robw01

This sounds totally different than my problem. It wasn't a gradual decline down to a stall. It was 2000 RPM's down to 0 RPM's in a second or two.

I guess I'm lucky. I haven't had any of the other reported idle/rpm issues reported. This has been the only problem. I'm almost possitive I understand exactly what is causing the symptoms. I'm just curious if these symptoms are normal or not.

If I keep the clutch in I have no problem (input shaft isn't spinning). If I let the clutch out slowly I get engine bog until the clutch is all the way out and the ECU compensates for the load being generated by the input shaft spinning in the apparently very stiff gearbox. I think my issue is more mechanical than ECU related. (And I'd much rather have mechanical problems than ECU/sensor! Those can be a royal pain to track down!)

Thanks anyway!