Lousy winter

[Hiok-Tiaq Ng <htng@aries.ece.cmu.edu>]

Ah, finally my car's (86 GT coupe) alive again, although it is still coughing.
5 weeks ago, my alternator died on me and as the weather
was cold and clammy and I did not have a garage, I waited until recently to
fix my alternator. It's the 90amp Bosch one, where everywhere I looked, cost
around $250 for a rebuilt one (PAP, GPR). Finally took the alternator out and
by luck, happened upon this place that was an authorized Bosch heavy duty 
electrical service center, and for $20 the young guy that helped me, put in
new brushes, disassembled the alternator and put the rotor (armature) on a 
lathe and leveled the lip(from the contact of the old brushes) out and it
was as good as new. All in 15 minutes. To think some other shop wanted
$125 to rebuild mine. Later, I had some contact problems but fine
sandpaper cured it. 
My car was a Calif. car and had never seen salt before. The amount of crud was 
unbelievable. For those of you who are in Pittsburgh, this place is
called Automotive Ignition.

However, not everything is perfect yet. My idle seems to be fluctuating between
the normal of 800rpm and 2000rpm. Either sticks at 800 or 2000rpm. I
changed my oil 2 hours ago and went from 10-40 to 20-50, both Castrol.
It seems a little better now (because of the grade?) but it is still
doing it. Any ideas? The idle stabilizer's kaput? All this time, my
temp. gauge showed lower than usual temp.,
but was within the operating range. Happens on warm/hot startups too.
Does the K-Jetronic think that the engine is still cold? What do you
guys think could be  the problem? 
Thanks

Tiaq
htng@aries.ece.cmu.edu  
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University