Rough idle/rpms jumping

[biguglyhairyscary]

Hello all, new to the forum. I'm working on a 2001 PT and I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice. The car has recently started idling oddly, meaning that the idle is constantly going up and down. If you tap the gas pedal, the idle will jump up to about 3k rpm for a few seconds then go right back to the previous idle. It also idles high while in D coming to and starting from a stop. I can't see any obvious vacuum hoses off, and I did the ether trick around the vacuum line areas with no change in idle. I've seen this with other vehicles and it turned out to be TPS, but I'm not terribly familiar with Chrysler. Any thoughts?

[ptcruisersteve]

What was the engine trouble code that came up when this problem started?
Also you might want to introduce yourself to the forum. Tell us what year PT Cruiser you have and some details.

[biguglyhairyscary]

I'm buguglyhairyscary, aka Eric R Lowther; fiction writer, underpaid transportation manager, and have been scraping my knuckles on anything with an internal combustion engine since I was 13 (we won't get into how long that's been Anyway, as I said, it's an '01 gunmetal gray stock model. I had to take it to auto zone to get a code, and the only one that came up was for temp sensor. I knew that would since I hadn't changed the coolant sensor. Originally, it would bounce between about 900-1500 rpm at idle. Since my posting, I've changed the coolant sensor, thermostat, and TPS. Now, it idles very high at about 2k but no longer fluctuates. I cleaned the intake manifold (upper and lower ) while I had them off and have checked all vacuum lines both visually and with ether. The problems now are the high idle and now the cooling fan doesn't come on. I changed both high and low side relays, still no fan. So now, idle at 2k and cooling fan inop.

[LionPT]

Try cleaning the IAC...Idle Air Control valve.

[ptcruisersteve]

The radiator fan not coming on is a critical issue.
Did the radiator fan work before working on the rough idle/rpm issue?
If the radiator fan did work what was done that you can remember that it seems the radiator fan quit working?
Have you tried putting 12 volts on the radiator fan to make sure its working okay?

[biguglyhairyscary]

IAC was my next thought but wanted to get some confirmation from others in the know before I dropped $60 on another sensor. I believe the fan did work before all this, so now I'm wondering when I started replacing parts and moving around a bunch of different harnesses and components on a 15 yr old vehicle that maybe a weak wire in a harness etc may have popped. I'll try putting current directly to the fan after work today.

[ptcruisersteve]

I would suggest that if the radiator fan works when you apply 12 volts to it to pull the low speed fan relay before starting it and see if the high speed fan starts to work automatically.

[biguglyhairyscary]

Thanks! I'll try that this evening.