The Most Troublesome Part Of Any Carbureted Car

The automatic choke is a system with hundreds of variations and dozens of ways to malfunction. Here's a quick rundown of how they work, and why you're probably better off without one at all.

[BlindBatG]

<— ‘80s kid. Growing up my mom had an ugly green Dart. I have fond memories of my Mom popping off the air cleaner to hold the choke open with a screw driver in the Kmart/Caldors parking lot. I thought she was bad azz.

[lambrokedrc]

Good Ol' Manual Choke Never Fails

[roadmasterk]

I cried out to God one time with regards to a poorly performing automatic choke, and he told me that he had, indeed, intended for all chokes to have manual cables...

[LunarOutlawsGarage]

I’ve always had better luck with the manual choke

[msmeyersmd]

I love old school carburetor talk. I grew up on cars with these. I intuitively learned how to feather them. Listening to tell rich from lean, long before I learned how they worked. If you didn’t? You couldn’t drive anywhere in the winter. The automatic chokes with the heat crossover worked pretty well...until the coil spring in the exhaust pipe broke. Or the weight rusted and fell off. For ultimate reliability, like the ‘53 Ford, 3 on the tree, I drove into the early 1980s, the manual choke was the “Bee’s Knees”. It did tend to get carburetor icing on a cool/cold and humid morning and wouldn’t idle worth crap. I devised a work around. It involved the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket cut to fit over the oil bath air cleaner, a 3” PVC Tee and pipe, and a manually operated butterfly valve made from the metal lid of a jar of peanut butter. With some aircraft heat ducting connected to a makeshift sheet metal contraption over some of the cast iron exhaust manifold. It worked like a charm, barely. I’m serious as a heart attack. I was commuting to school in LA and it was very bad to have your engine die on an uphill stoplight during morning traffic. That was about a block from my apartment. I worked as a gas pumper at the local airport in the summer. and scrounged the design idea and parts from my bosses junk pile. The engine eventually broke a rod cruising home North on I-5 in Northern California to Medford OR. My Dad and Mom came with his Minnie Winnie motorhome and strap towed me to the far side of the Siskiyou pass brake check area. He said I should just coast down the ~15 miles to Ashland and then he would tow me home. It worked great...except it was raining fairly hard and the ‘53 Ford’s wipers were vacuum powered. No engine? No vacuum. No heater. So I had to keep the window down with my hand and arm stuck out in the freezing cold rain to manually operate the wiper. All while watching my Mother staring at me out of the back of the motorhome with a concerned look. It’s a steep winding freeway mountain road with a couple of truck runoffs. Fortunately the rainwater kept my “high tech” 4 wheel drum brakes from fading. My Dad put a rebuilt engine in it and used in Portland OR where he was based as an airline pilot. Where it is cool/cold and humid. He called and said it kept dying on him when cold. I told him to put my Rube Goldberg contraption on the engine. He always looked at it as a dubious thing. He called me back and said “GD it works”. I learned everything in know about cars and mechanics from my Dad. I miss him.

[johnwoodworth]

Well on some cold mornings my chicken needs choked a bit for a good start to the day

[georgelackey]

Uncle Tony, Maybe I'm old school but a manual choke is the way to go!

[chrisbrownjohn]

As a young man I owned an equal number of GM and Mopars.
I put manual chokes on my Mopars, it just made life simpler.

[ejcheli]

This is fantastic information. I have been driving my first carburated vehicles for almost a year now and you described everything that has been happening PERFECTLY. My truck came with an aftermarket Edelbrock carb... and yep! The only issue with it I've had is exactly what you mentioned toward the end! If I stop somewhere after I just started it... there is a good chance I have to fight it to start up when I get back in. But every morning it fires right up like a champ. This has been really really frustrating but now I know why! Thanks so much and keep these videos going, they are so helpful to us younger guys that grew up with nothing but EFI.

[djstl]

Remember back in the day late 60s-70s.. you could smell that one car in the neighborhood that ran so rich it would come through the screen door and burn your eyes and nose.

[DanFilipi]

Wow this video brought back so many memories of headaches running carbs. Everything you say is spot on!

[rodney]

Uncle Tony, please. Just teach us on your favorite carburetor and what you found has worked best for you.

[SophiaAphrodite]

When I rebuilt my Satellite I put in a manual choke on my Edlebrock on purpose. The weather here in Iowa is unpredictable at best.I also inadvertently dropped it back open halfway after starting without realizing why. It just ran better. Now I know.

[ex-engineer]

Even this old guy (me) enjoyed your teaching. Carter and Rochester carbs for $5 -10 at the junk yard in 1970s were fun.

[chuckandjenbridges]

I hope you and Uncle Kathy are completely safe from those tornadoes I just read about. I look forward to, and learn from each new video. Thank you and God Bless.

[TheGhjgjgjgjgjg]

I bought an 84' AMC Eagle about 6 months ago and have barely been able to drive it because of that exact reason you explain with the choke pull off.I was born in 91', I know EFI and newer tech so It's back to the basics for me

[samtischler]

I love these videos to get my mechanical fix while stuck in my college dorm. Keep em coming Uncle Tony!

[lizziejordan-seeley]

I was always told that auto-chokes were no good, but I never understood why - thanks for the explanation! We have a Holley on the 318, not sure how that is set but at least I feel confidant to go take a look and have a semi-knowledgeable conversation with hubby about it lol, and my own build has a Weber that I'm converting to manual choke. I know a lot of adverts push towards EFI, but at MY level of understanding, I'm going back to basics and taking it from there, and I am getting so much good information here, I love it! :)

[prowlingtruth]

Your a national treasure uncle Tommy. Great to hear you explain things. Even when i already know it.

[LtGoldenRod]

I just found this channel a few days ago and it is now my favorite on YouTube.