Choke sticks open on Q-Jet

[petes74ttop]

The choke will not close by itself on the first start of the day, I have to remove the air cleaner lid, crack the throttle and just touch the choke plate. I tried putting light oil on all the moving parts-that did not help. Cleaned the oil off with carb cleaner-that did not help. I replaced the choke spring-that did not help. Any suggestions what to try next?

Here's a close up of this side

Here's the other side,

Thanks for looking.

 

[Hib Halverson]

Remove the carb.

Carefully examine all the choke parts and how they operate. It is likely something is worn/bent/broken such that some part of the choke system is binding.

 

[lars]

Hib is correct:
Once the throttle is cracked open, the choke should be completely free to rotate and move with no restriction. If the choke is not immediately snapping closed when cold, there is some mechnical contraint or binding in the linkage system. This could be in the choke coil (on the manifold) itself, in the rod between the coil and the carb, or in the fast idle/intermediate choke linkage. But in one of these locations, you have somthing rubbing or catching - you just have to examine it closely enough to determine where that restriction point is.

You can do some of this by process of elimination:

1. Disconnect the choke rod from the coil at the carb attach point. Hang a weight off the attach point instead of the choke rod. See if the choke operates as it should with the dead weight hanging there instead of the choke coil being attached.
2. Remove the choke intermediate rod from the carb (the rod that goes down inside the carb and attaches to the choke on top). With the rod removed, see if the fast idle cam & linkage pops up and rotates freely when you touch the gas pedal cold.

By doing these things, you should be able to narrow down where your rub point is located.

As always, if this is a carb that I've worked on, tuning and re-service is available at no charge by sending it back.

Lars

 

[petes74ttop]

Update 1

Hi guys thanks for the help.

HH-I took your advise but without removing the carb, just trying to see what's moving or not.

Lars-You rebuilt the carb years ago and it worked perfect!!! A No charge re-service is not acceptible! I'm years past any warranty, if we can't correct this problem over the net you'll get the carb and a check, period case closed!

Tomorrow there is an early car show at the North Lake Mall (Charlotte, NC) so the wife will go shopping in the mall and I'll go to the show and 2 hours later we'll meet up. That's a good deal right? I mean how much could she spend in 2 hours? LOL.
Then Sunday is mothers day so I'll try steps 1 & 2 next week and post back.

Here's another video is this normal or not?

Thanks for the help and have a great weekend!
PG

 

[lars]

Pete -
I'm on dial-up, so I can't see the video. If there is any problem at all with the carb, or any indication of a problem, just send it back to me and I'll run it, test it and fix it - all my carbs have a lifetime warranty and service agreement to test and tweak any time you need it. Let me know if you need shipping info.

Lars
V8FastCars@msn.com

 

[lars]

Hey Pete -
You have something funny going on in the third photo in your original post..

1. The choke is open, yet the choke rod from the choke coil is not pushing up on the attach point - there is an air gap above the rod in the hole - the rod should be pushing up and eliminating the gap.
2. The engine appears to be not running in the photo, because the choke pulloff is extended. Yet, the spring coil around the choke pulloff arm is collapsed and retracted. If the engine is not running, the pulloff should be extended as shown and the spring should be pushing the choke closed to eliminate the slop at the top of the choke rod attach hole.
3. It also looks like the choke rod coming out of the coil housing is rubbing on the housing on the outboard side - check that out and make sure the rod is free to move without any contact with the sheet metal housing.

Something is not right... Send it back and I'll fix it.

 

[petes74ttop]

Update #2 5-10