Washed my engine, now idle hunts

["Marc A. Levy" <malevy@xxxx>]

After a oil "mess" earlier this summer which required a fire
extinguisher, I needed to clean all of the "yuck" off of my engine.

After I hosed everything down, I removed all of the sparkplugs to get
the water out of the wells (they were all filled with water) and cranked
the engine with the plugs out (to avoid hydro lock).  

I then replaced the spark plugs and started it up with no problems, and
no hunting as it usually does when it is cold..  


5 minutes later with the engine warmed up, the idle started to hunt.
This is backwards from what it normally does. I removed and cleaned all
of the electrical connections (I could find). I also removed and
cleaned the distributor cap and rotor.

I have seen this problem discussed many times before, but could not
locate anything similar to this in the archives. (sorry if I missed
it!)

Currently, I have disconnected the frequency valve to keep the idle
stable. Not good for the fuel economy or emissions, but... :)

There is also a loose (not connected to anything) connector part of the
wire harness that also connects to the vacuum control switch for the
distributor (next to the fuel distributor). The connector has solid
black wire, and another black wire with a stripe (there may have
actually been 3 wires, but I don't remember now). Is this the connector
for the Thermo-time switch that is buried under the intake? I stuck my
hand in there and felt a wire on a connector, but I think that was the
coolant sensor. There is another set of wires that goes under there
(green, with some stripes) but I don't know where that terminates. Can
anyone shed some light on this connector? Is it used, and if so where
does it go?