when dark raise hood , start engine, spray a mist of water on plug wires and look for wires breaking down
I still say there is a possibility that this is not an electrical problem. The key for me is that when slowing to an idle the RPMs fall so low that the engine dies..and that after everything warms up the condition goes away. I had this issue when there was not any warm air getting into the air cleaner. The question remains..does this tend to happen at colder temps or even when it rains when it is warm? Even if it is not icing...a misadjusted choke with that never sets a fast idle can cause symptoms like this too.. Not saying it ain't electrical..just saying keep other stuff in mind too.
First of all, it never gets warm here in Boston. (Hopefully it will soon!) but it has been very dry the past week so I haven't been able to really go through this checklist. Car has been running great. One thing I CAN say though is I have always had choke trouble with this car because it was missing choke and heat riser assembly from the day I bought it. I replaced whole carb at one point with unit with automatic choke assy, but still had no heat riser tube, and car worse with new carb. Dismounted carb again to find it was sucking air, regasketed it and it runs a bit better but still not 100%. So I put in a manual choke cable that also didnt seem to do much. So it is very possible that the choke situation could be the explanation. There doesnt seem to be much play in the butterfly/cable. It is not a bad cable installation, it moves freely and easily when not attached tightly to choke. Can anybody tell me how much play I should have when pulling the knob back and forth? It only seems to move a half centimeter in and out, practically fixed firmly in place, so I am wondering if I have a problem with the butterfly. I have also always firmly beleived that the car could run like new (still less than 50K orig miles) if I could figure out what is sure to be a real simple fix could be diagnosed. I guess I never really figured this rainy day problem was related to my ongoing choke trouble because I never really noticed this particular idiosynchracy until recently. I have to confess that I am not really the most knowlegable mechanic. I can change starters, grease chassis, replace wiper motors and brake pads but I get really get freaked out fiddling with points and carbs. Maybe because last time I tried to was one of the rare times my car ended up being towed!
