Carburetor Trouble Shooting: Electric Choke Problems Fixes and Tips

Most Cars were built with the electric choke assemblies installed on their carburetors. Your electric choke does a great job in keeping your car running on start up and also after the engine warms. If you are having carburetor choke problems it is best to leave the car over night at a automotive repair shop. This is the best fix that you can do to get the choke to act up while the trained auto repair tech is trying to track down your starting and running problems while the car is cold.

If you would rather fix this yourself I will give you some fixes and tips to help you get your car's electric choke working properly. As I mentioned before have the car set over night. If you can not do this for some reason then allow the car to sit at least four hours. Remove the air filter housing and look for these tips. First open the throttle shaft one quick snap to set the choke plate. After hitting the throttle you should be able to see the choke plate snap shut. If it does not then look for dirty or binding choke linkages.

Next open the choke plate and look down inside of the carburetor and snap the throttle. Look for a steady stream of fuel coming out while you are hitting the throttle. If you see no fuel squirting out then you found the problem of the car not starting cold. You will have to have the accelerator pump fixed to remedy this problem. Once you have fixed the accelerator pump start the car and check your fast idle speed settings. The vehicle should be idling high until you hit the throttle again.

If for some reason the choke plate is not staying open check your primary and secondary choke pull-offs. These are vacuum operated and should be opening the choke plate just enough to keep the car from flooding out and choking itself. This will usually produce black smoke. Find the carburetor number on the casting and go buy and replace your choke pull offs. This last step is pretty easy when you get to this point.

With a digital volt ohm meter check your voltage at the electric choke plug in. If you find no battery voltage there then you have an open circuit which needs to be tracked down and fixed. Once you find the open circuit to the electric choke and you have it fixed you should be able now to hit the throttle shaft cable once and watch it return it to the normal idling range. For more on carburetor fixes and tips check out my library of automobile articles here.