1955 Eldorado - something sticking?

[Lockhouse]

Hi,

Hope everyone's looking forward to Easter Weekend. Here in the UK it's traditionally the weekend the season starts and I hope to be out and about as the weather's looking good.

So here's my question. My '55 Eldo is set up really nicely now; timing\advance, fuel, revs, spark all good. However, every third or so time I start her up, she doesn't want to idle. I start her up, I take my foot off the gas, the GEN light comes on and after about twenty seconds of spluttering, she stalls. There's no misfire or anything, just that I have to keep my foot very lightly on the gas to stop it happening. This is about every third time. Generally it happens when she's cold, but I've had it when she's warm too and even after a run as I came into the driveway. It's Spring in the UK so there's no extreme temperatures.

I think something might be sticking intermittently to cause this. Two times out of three she runs like a dream. Any ideas what I can check?

Thank you,

Andy

[walt chomosh #23510]

Andrew,
  I ran into the same thing on my 1955CDV and it turned out to be my Rochester secondary throttle shaft being worn and causing intermittent bad/no idle and stalling conditions. I sent the carb to Daytona and they turned it around in approx 1week, and did it cheap! I'm sure there are many machine shops in England that do this work....good luck!....walt...tulsa,ok

[Lockhouse]

Thanks Walt - I've got the dual Rochester setup so could well be along those lines. Any way to check this before I start dismantling anything?

BTW, stunning set-up you have.

[Dave Shepherd]

Ok, try and wiggle the throttle shafts, see if you feel excess play in any of them, this, as mentioned, can cause unstable idle conditions.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Sounds like the idle circuits are not working correctly.  Could be blocked passages.