No Choke on my Solex?

[Wolf Spyder]

Yes, I have the dreaded Solex carb. However I am trying to keep as much original as I can. It seems that the choke will not work. The car won't start unless you give a shot of starter fluid or gas in the carb. Then it will start but run rough until is is good and warm. The question is do I need to do a total re-build or is there a trick out there to just get the choke working.

Thanks

[Gary]

Check to see if the choke plates move freely. Any binding of the plates or the linkage could prevent them from closing when "cold". A good shot of carb cleaner will do wonders.

The adjustment for the "cold" setting could be off. Back when gas was $.50 a gallon, one of the tricks to get better mileage was to disable the choke by releasing the spring tension to stop the car from running rich during warm up. Not sure how effective that was as you probably wasted more gas by revving it up to keep it running.

You should be able to look at the choke without disassembling the entire carb. Marcus Schaper has Solex rebuild kits on eBay (search for item 2488263930) and can bring it to the states on his next trip.