Whew. Lots to report.
I spent the evening putting everything back together again. It all went smoothly except when I forgot to put the fuel rail & injectors in before putting the manifold back on and then had to squeeze them in there.
With some trepidation I re-filled the coolant as the last step before starting her.
Immediately, before even starting the car, I heard drip-drip-drip in the catch pan under the car. Sure enough it was leaking from the heater control valve! What. The. Frak?!?
I got under the car and used a flashlight to look up at the connections. There's no way it could be leaking from my new hoses! I started wondering if the housing had cracked.
Then I noticed water was coming out of the little holes in the bottom of the top part of the valve.
Sigh. I pulled the airbox off again, got setup to let coolant drain (again), and pulled the heater control valve out to look at it.
I noticed the metal plunger was sticking way out. When I opened it up I could see that if this was the case, water would leak around the diaphragm. I got the old solenoid out and noticed it still had a washer on it. I transplanted it to the new solenoid and when I re-assembled the unit I made sure the plunger was pushed in as far as possible.
You old-timers are probably laughing your asses off at me by now. I just replaced all my heater hoses, removing my intake manifold in the process, busting several knuckles, and making my wife wonder if she's still married to me...all for naught.
Oh well, at least I have the confidence of knowing the hoses are all good, and I have sexy clean engine.
Of course I could be wrong about this and the damn thing could start leaking after my next drive.
On another note, the surging idle was not rectified by all my work either (I did nothing specific to try to fix it, other than putting in a new temp sensor; I was hoping that maybe I'd seal somthing up in the process of doing everything).
I was watching it surge and I wondered what would happen if I pinched the hose that goes from the throttle to the ICV.
When pinched she idles PERFECTLY.
What does this mean?