Thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions with the starting and
richness problems on my '78 Midget. This weekend I decided to get
serious and attack the problems. I started by checking the timing
and found out that what I thought was the timing mark, was not (too
much grease and gunk). Took some white paint and painted the correct
mark and then checked the timing. It turned out to be many, many
degrees too far advanced. Set the timing back to specs and lo and
behold, it starts fine. However, it still ran as rich as ever. Got
the correct tool to adjust the mixture and leaned it out until the
needle almost was falling out of the piston, still too rich.
At this point I decided to re-check my choke and discovered that the heat
mass in the water choke wasn't pulling the choke off, even when the engine
was hot. Took the heat mass and put some pre-load on it by rotating it
and, all of a sudden, it runs fine! :-) I think I have to back it off just
a bit because now it doesn't come on very well, but it's just a matter
of some fine adjustments. Thanks again all!
- Alan
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