Bill,
What you are probably experiencing, in this cold weather, is a sticking Idle
Stabilizer Valve. It could be frozen moisture or hardened oil/grease/gunk
but the result is the same: the valve spring isn't returning the valve to
its rest position. When this happened to us, our solution was:  to remove
the stabilizer; clean it out with throttle body cleaner; blow dry with
compressed air; and then spray with light oil. A quick but temporary fix is
to remove the inlet hose connection and spray some WD40 into the valve and
reconnect the hose. The WD40 is a water dispersant and the WD40 will soften
any oil/grease/gunk.
Hope this helps,
-Larry
'86 Syncro Westfalia

V I Urban wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> The cold weather here in Illinois took it's toll on my van. When I was
> cleaning off the 1/4inch thick ice off the windshield the engine started
> racing to 4000 rpms all by itself. It would hover around 4000 and
> sometimes drop when I would punch it. I thought maybe a bad return
> spring of some kind and looked for that but everything seemed right. I
> remembered someone mentioning an Idle Stabilizer a while back so I
> looked in my Bently and saw something about bypassing it by
> disconnecting the wire terminal. So I did that and the problem
> disappeared the idle is a little lower now(500-750rpm) but it's not
> racing. Will I be allrght driving the van this way back to my home in
> Wichita,KS(460miles)?
>
> Any helpful advice appreciated.
>
> Later, Bill Urban
> '91 Carat