Chrysler Repair: rough idle 98 sebring, valve closure, vacuum pipe

Question
I am refrencing back to a april 7, 2005    " stalling below 1000 rpm" question... I have the same car...98 sebring lxi...with the same exact problem, and I do mean exact! I was wondering if " donald " ever responded back to you about his car and if it did turn out to be the egr valve...I notice my egr doesnt seem to open and shut smoothly and in time with my throttle so I removed it today to look at it...just wondering if you and donald would be able to save me some trouble shooting...thanks, John

Answer
Hi John,
I checked but couldn't find a follow up question from Donald, and I haven't had luck in trying to find whether he gave me a feed back rating either which I had hoped would be the case. But, since you have the egr off, try to suck on the opening and see whether is seems to be air tight in its present configuration (which is "closed"). If it is, then it shouldn't be causing the rough idle/stalling. But if it seems to be not air tight then try moving the valve either by sucking on the vacuum pipe with a vacuum pump, or mechanically lifting the valve closure with a stiff thin pry tool inserted into the opening which appears to be plugged by the piston/stem, prying in the direction which would raise the stem. If it goes up and down but doesn't seal or moves with a lot of friction, then try some spray solvent internally at the piston closure point and externally at the stem to see if you can get the crud to dissolve so that the valve then both seals, and moves easily. If that proves unsuccessful, then maybe a new egr valve would be a good investment. Let me know what happens and I'll give you some more suggestions, but when writing back tell me if you tried to do a readout of the fault codes, and also tell me exactly how the engine is misbehaving.
Roland