Well, it sure is fun learning how to work on this beast, without knowing anyone else in the city who works on cars, and having absolutely no experience. :)

I thought more about what might be happening to the car overnight, and had the hood open to begin looking at the carbs to see if perhaps one of them was leaking gas. Just at that moment, the rear carb started SPURTING gas all over, well, the exhaust manifold. Shut the car off...braced for fire...calmed down.

I guess the last time I had the float chamber cover off the rear carb I didn't tighten the shaft that the float pivots off enough, and it has been working its way loose. This is probably one of the reasons why I have had hard starts, as much of the gas in that float chamber slowly leaks out at night. So I took off the carb, tightened it back up, and presto.

I assumed it would start fine this morning. No such luck.

Then I noticed something which I should have noticed before. There is a little mark on the fast idle cam which the choke wires are connected to (nothing about it in the service manual). And that mark should line up with the fast idle screw which is pushed open by the cam when the choke is on, I reasoned. Well, it wasn't lined up with it, because I had just connected the wires wherever the choke was positioned when you let it go.

So I adjusted the choke accordingly, so it is now fully open when I pull on the dash choke handle, and the car started well. So I think I have been trying to start the car in the morning with little gas, and with the choke only marginally open.

The car could already have warmed up by the time I figured all this out, so I will have to wait until tomorrow morning to see if this has fixed the problem.

Greg in Ottawa

Good to see you make progress. On my twin Strombergs I've got to completely pull out the choke to start it with easy, and slowly close it within the first 30 to 60 seconds. In Winter when it gets to within a few degrees of freezing I've got to keep the choke a small amount open for the first few mi, or the other trick is to shut down the car after 30 seconds, go have breakfast, and come back to a partually warmed up car that only needs fast idle to keep it running. Any other time of the year I can cancel the choke within about 1 mi and just run on a very small amount of fast idle for another mi. My trip to work is only 3.5km (1.2mi), so you can imagine my fuel consumption! Less than 200 mi per tank. On the open road it is more like 300 mi.

Have fun...

Yup. Starting fine in the morning now. Makes me very happy.

Greg