Chrysler Repair: 2004 town and country: stalls, exhaust gas recirculation valve, exhaust gas recirculation

Question
QUESTION: it looks as if you have had several people ask about a similar issue as i am having but don't really see any answers so i'll start it again. well my van just stalls when it wants usually restarts real quick (throw in neutral and restart without having to even pull over) the engine light won't come on and I've had it scanned and get nothing. i first suspected fuel but replaced all plugs and the gas filter. notably an improvement although it still dies. usually doesn't hesitate although sometimes it does just stops running all the electrical in the car is not affected just the engine. recently i could see that the engine rpms fluctuated before dieing. any questions please ask.

ANSWER: Hi Andy,
When I see stalling while underway, with no codes, my first thought is that your exhaust gas recirculation valve has a 'sticky' action which is causing it to hang-up ajar insteead of closing tightly when you let up on the gas pedal. That causes a too lean mixture to sustain an idle. So look for the egr valve near the intake throttle body assembly (underneath it) which is mounted in a small diameter metal pipe that runs from the right side (if a V-6 engine) exhaust manifold toward the rear of the engine.  It has a round vacuum-operated top piece, a flange, and then the body of the valve mounted into the pipe. Inside the flange you will see a slotted rod which is the valve stem. If you put a screwdriver tip in the slot you can move the stem back and forth, against spring action in one direction that tries to close the valve. It should close to a dead-stop via the spring action. If not, then spray some WD-40 on the stem where it enters the valve body and move the stem back and forth with the screwdriver to loosen up the 'action'. That should solve the problem.
Roland


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QUESTION: i actually took off the air intake today and completely removed this piece. it did move freely although it had a lot of build up on it. it was all dry and didn't seem to affect the operation. when that valve is open i have a high idle(12 to 1500 rpm) usually when the engine is cold. when my engine is warm i have an idle of 600 to 800. while driving gas engaged typically around 1500 rpm the engine just stops from 1500 to 0 in less than a second with out moving my foot on the pedal. occasionally it will hesitate and i can recover it from a few quick presses of the gas pedal but usually do not have the warning and it just stops.

Answer
Are you speaking of the egr (exhaust gas recirculation) or the throttle body 'valve'? It sounds to me like you were dealing with the latter. Did you remove the automatic idle motor and clean its tip and the side channel it controls? Verify that you actually cleaned the egr and its stem, which are different parts from the throttle body.
Roland