SES light blinking, idling, and noise from engine

[jelani6428]

so i went to start the car yesterday and had a little trouble cranking but it eventually did.and when it did i heard a hitting noise coming from the engine. after a minute it went away but the car was idling really bad as if it wanted to shut down then i noticed the SES light blinking. i immeadiately shut off the car then restart it. again, it gave a little trouble trynna start but it did, no blinking light this time but it satyed on, and the car is still idling really hard. tookk it around the block and it drives cool until u start slowing down..thats when you feel like it wants to cut off
details- just changed oil. 203,000 miles. replaced head gaskets about 1 year ago. no tune up in about a year. changed all 4 hub assembly couple months ago. any help is grateful.Thanks in advance!!! oh and being that i changed my hubs, why would my trac, anti lock and svs light would still be on...i thought the hubs took care of that?!?!?!

[jawa]

check for vacume leaks. kinda sounds like a intake boot may be partly off

[jelani6428]

what is the intake boot if you dont mind me asking

[jelani6428]

in not that savy with mechanical problems..i do minor work..oil change, etc....so where to look for vacume leaks?

[Redog]

When the SES is blinking, that means "Very very very bad" :eek:

[a.graham52]

When the SES is blinking, that means "Very very very bad" :eek:

on a technical term it means "catalyst damaging missfire". sounds like your missing a few cylinders here. start with the basics my simple maitence friend. make sure all yoru spark plug wires are in place well. maybe pull your plugs and find the ones that dont look well. that would give you an idea. make sure to remember what cylinders they come from (1,2,3,4,5,6) because if one spark plug doesnt fire it may effect its sister cylinder. or if the coils bad then it will take out two cylinders right there.

look at the engine closely. maybe keep it running and quickly look at the engine to give you an idea where the noise is coming from.

[jelani6428]

So I finally got to autozone to run the codes and this is what I got
P0128
P0301
P0440

I know p0301 is a misfire from the spark plug and p0128 is something to do with the coolant temp sensor (I think) and the last one p0440 ....that's the one I'm still researching. Tomorrow I will be doing a full tune up so I will update as soon as I'm finish!

[a.graham52]

added a snipit of info on the codes.

p0128: engine coolant temp not up to temp
http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt53/agraham52/p0128.png

p0301: simple to remember. p0300: misfire detected, p0301: misfire cylinder 1, p0302: misfire cylinder 2 etc.

p0440 large evap leak.
http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt53/agraham52/p0440.png

[jelani6428]

Wow..thanks alot for that info!!!! And also thank you for the quick response!!! So what I'm getting from thi is 1. I need to change my coolant temp sensor?
2. Change the wires and spark plugs?( I say all those instead of just finding the bad one and changing it because I will be doing a full tune up tomorrow.
3. Check my gas cap?( and to think about it ..I still have the one that came on the car and it doesn't tighten the same way as when I first got the car).

[a.graham52]

Probably the temp problem is he thermosat sticking open a bit. Without the right tools its hard to diagnose an evap problem without the right tools. Try a gas cap and see what happens