Saturday I adjusted the value clearances by myself for the first time. Thanks to the wonderful directions found on this forum I had no problems except when trying to put the valve cover back on. Is there some trick to this? Anyway, after finally getting the cover back on (but I don't know how) and all the linkages back together I took my 300D for a spin. On the way back home, I started to notice that the car would stay at speed without much pressure on the accelerator. On downhill sections, it would speed up. It was like the throttle linkage was sticking. At home and in park, the idle speed stayed between 1100 and 1200 rpm. This is about 400 rpm faster than before I set the valve clearances. I lubricated all the ball linkages and exercised the throttle, but the idle spped does not drop below 1100.

Any suggestions?

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Matt Chisholm

Make sure you have the linkage hooked up correctly. It's easy to get the cruise linkage mixed up with the others. I can't imagine that it can be anything but linkage related.

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1998 E300D, 287k, barely broken in.

Yep, that is correct. A valve adj. obviously isn't going to effect the idle.

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Yes, something is binding and not letting it return to idle.

I took a picture of the linkage before removing the valve cover so that I would have something to look at when putting it back together. It appears that all the linkage is where is should be.

I will check for binding after work today. I did notice that the stop lever was not moving freely. If I pushed hard on it, the engine would stop, but it did not seem right that it should take so much effort. Is there anything that I should concentrate on?

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Matt Chisholm

I'd just take everything apart and put it back together again, using some grease on the ball/socket part of the throttle linkages. The Holy Book says to use ATF but that never worked well for me, too thin so it lasts a very short time.

I like reg'lar ole fashioned grease.

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

grease the ball sockets

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~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net