i was driving today home and at idle,my car started to have this rattling,it was relativly loud,and went away when i accelerater above 1800 RPMS or so...and i think i have narrowed it down to the idler,when the car "clicks", i see teh idler move around a little bit
now ive never dealt with this kind of problem in my car,any help appriciated.

-Sam

also the harmonic balancers rattle when they deteriorate. I dont think the noise goes away at higher RPM'* though.

When the harmonic balancer goes it is really loud, almost like the engine is knocking but worse. As soon asyou get a bit of rpm in the engine, ( I think above about 1,500) it seems to go away and you wouldn't even know the difference.

It scared the hell out of me when mine went, I really thought the engine was done.

My bearing went out on my compressor clutch and caused the car to rattle and the
tensioner jumped around.
Just one other thing to look at........

There is also an easy way to test for the balancer. Make sure the belt is on and actually grab the belt ( with the car off of course) and see if you can pull it forward and backwards. If you can move the belt look at the dampener and see if the outer pulley on it rotates but the inside does not. If so then the rubber inside the dampener is gone.

Hi;

I read your post & I seem to be having the exact same problem.
When the car is idling, the RPM drops sometimes as low as 500.
When I accelerate, the car stumbles, coughs & jerks sometimes
violently.

I was wondering if you changed your idler and that fixed it or did you
replace the Harmonic Balancer?

I thought the problem was with the EGR Valve, so I bought a new one and
put it on but that did nothing to correct the problem.

I drive a 1990 LE with 250K KM on the engine. I'm certain the engine/transmission
are both fine. But this idling problem is killing me.....please respond.