Excessive Idle

[ptrimby]

My Camry ( 96, 1mzfe) has begun to idle up every so often.
When the engine is cold it acts properly, warms up through the standard routine and then will idle to abt 850 rpms. At some point in time it'll begin idling up, first usually up to 1500, then it will go higher towards >2500... i didnt shift to neutral to find out what it was idling at when it was really bad, but put it this way: without touching the accelerator i got up to 75 on some flat highway. After a mile on the highway it began to drop off idle until about 2 miles further when everything returned to normal for the last 15 minutes of my ride.

The problem comes and goes, but mostly occurs, and gets worse, when I sit at stop lights and in traffic.

I checked the IAC through jumping the TE1 and E1, idled up from 850 to 1100, but then again thats when it wasnt acting up. My only thought as of now may be the ECT. Any suggestions?

[88 LE]

Have you tried cleaning out the IAC? It may or may not help.

And you can check the resistance on the ECT sensor.

http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBr...3d8013e283.jsp

[ptrimby]

I cleaned the throttle body and IAC out thoroughly yesterday, lots of buildup after 186k miles, but everything seems clear now.
I tested the ECT about 45 minutes post-drive, read about 700 ohms which seems dead on.
So barring that one of the above may be intermittently failing in some form, could it be anything else?

[Mayne Event]

I had the same problem one time.....then one day as im driving down the road I get a little chill......Thats when I decided to turn off the A/C that had been turned on for the previous month that I was completly unaware of causing my engine to idle high from time to time.......

[ptrimby]

smooth one

After some tinkering around...its looking like the cruise control lever is sticking to the throttle and holding it at wherever I last pushed the accelerator pedal to. Somehow.