Hey all.
Just thought I'd make a quick enquiry about my engine and it's small problem.

I have a 66 and smoetimes when I go to drive it in the morning it feels like it's losing fuel when the revs get a bit higher. But I think it's getting plenty of fuel because it's pumping out a small amount of black smoke and the exhaust tip looks rather black. So basically it seems to be choking and it only happens when i first start it up for the day and it doesn't seem to go away for quite a while too.

And one time it made a small backfire, dumped a load of smoke and then went fine.

I know it's probably something simple but i just thought i'd ask.

Cheers.

Check your plugs..... What color are they? Black is bad. Sounds like you just need a tune up.

Yeah sorry was meant to say the plugs and leads are fine. Plugs look like new..ish. Thought there may be some moisture in the dizzy but have tried some dispersant and doesn't fix it. I'm thinkin along th lnes of a sticky choke maybe. Make sense to anyone?

The carb may need an overhaul, in fact, it won't hurt if you pulled it apart and give it a once over.
(all carby's can benefit from a minor service once in their life !)

some of things you wanna check are;

flooding fuel bowl (check the adjustment or cut-off valve))
Accelerator pump adustment (is it pumping out too much?)

in VERY rare cases, the acelerator pump nozzle (small tube that points down throat) may have become
dislodged and fell down intake manifold (trust me , this happens).

what generally happens is that there is erratic acceleration as too much fuel in uneven amounts goes
gurgling down the intake. (since the nozzle tends to restrict and give an even flow of fuel)

other things to check as well is;

timing (make sure its spot on, including the points gap)
and that you have no air leaks at the manifold.

These can be culprits too.

reading the zorst colour is pointless now thanks to the shitty fuel these days
everything burns black as now

god how i miss the days of leaded fuel......
i could fang the shit outta the bug out the road and get back to town and that nice pale grey tail pipe would tell me I tuned was spot on

do u know if ur getting good strong spark all the time?

Nice...So many in depth responses. I think I may have foun the problem though. When the choke closes up it actually sticks there and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to drop back into place when you let the throttle go. But it just stays there.

In theory this looks like it's problem solved but I probably won't know until tomorrow when I head off for work.

Thanks heaps guys. I'll let you know how it goes. If it's still bad I'll look into what's been mentioned.

What an awesome source of info this site is.

is the choke element still heating up ok and not binding?

Chokes can be a pain! I hope you get yours under control. With the slightly less hot season coming up that they have the nerve to call winter, you may need that choke to operate properly, uness you don't mind nursing the engine for a while.

Yeah nursing it is no problem for me but I will get it sorted so it works properly.

But this morning, after disabling the choke yesterday, the car ran perfectly so I think I might have sorted it out. So thanks goes out to everything for taking the time to advise me on the things I can try if something similar happens again.

Cheers.