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Why do I need to hold gas to warm up my engine?

I bought an old '71 F100 to fix-up, and it runs great once its warm, but I have to sit and hold the gas pedal in for the first ~10 minutes otherwise it stalls as soon as I let off the gas. I also need to pump the gas pedal at least a couple of times to even get it to ignite

I thought it might be the carb (it was running very very rich) so I rebuilt that and put it back to factory settings, and it started first time and ran well afterwards, but now I think that it was just because the engine was already warm (I drove it just before removing carburetor, and it was only off for about 2 hours)

Well, now its been sat a couple of days, went to start it and I'm back to needing to hold in the gas pedal to keep it from stalling. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on what could be causing this?

I'd rather not buy a new carburetor if I can avoid it (one of the jets was a little dinged up) and was wondering if there is something common to look at before I start replacing all the hoses and cleaning the throttle body out.

Thanks!

—submitted by on March 31st 2009 at 2:13pm.

  • Posts: 2
  • Mar 31 2009 3:52pm

My bad, I just saw this is VW specific website... I was too eager to submit my question

If you have any advice, it'd be appreciated. If you can't answer as its now VW-related, I understand

  • DannytheMechanic
  • Posts: 181
  • Mar 31 2009 4:17pm

Well I'm not too familiar with Fords, but this isn't really a Ford specific problem. Typically you're talking about the choke circuit not functioning properly in the carburator, whether it's electrically operated or what I don't know (often vehicles this old don't have the original carb anyways) so if it is an electric choke make sure it's getting a 12v signal to it. You can just run a wire from the positive side of the coil to the carb. Carbs are a bit like this though, most of the carburated vehicles I've had did the same thing. So basically check the vacuum lines and clean the throttle plates. Pumping the gas before starting is normal as well.