I always 'manned-up' and disconnected the choke.
"You live in the South boy we don't need no stink'in lecterk choke and all down hee-ah...."
6sal6

I just finished rebuilding my Holley 4160 (450 cfm) on my 65 vert. It was stalling when going into turns occasionally and it had an off idle stumble. The choke was working fine, but it had those issues. I found some debris in the chamber that the power valve screwed into, but not much else internally. I did find that it had only six screws holding the throttle plate on instead of eight. The middle two were missing. After blowing everything clean, replacing all the seals and gaskets, I installed a new power valve. My old one was an 8.5 and the new one in the kit was a 6.5. I had adjusted the float chamber levels earlier, so when I replaced the float valves I had measured them with a feeler gauge. I set them to those settings, adjusted the idle mixture screws out 1 1/2 turns and set the automatic choke at the required setting of one mark toward lean. It had been on four, so the choke was a bit weak. I actually still have the choke stove setup.  It started and ran pretty well, and the stalling and off idle stumble are gone. Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up a vacuum gauge and fine tune the idle screws, and hopefully it will be good to go for a long while yet.

John Ha wrote:

BILLY WALTON from GEORGIA wrote:

I am thinking mine is stuck shut ...when I  get time  I  am gonna check it....might be why it is running crappy like its bogged down.
 

If it's stuck shut it'll be running really rich.  You'd smell that in the exhaust and see the black smoke. 

I'd guess you have a vacuum leak somewhere. 

It is running rich...I been working a lot lately and aint had a chance to look at it it much.
I wish I had another carb I could stick on it.
 

BILLY WALTON from GEORGIA wrote:

John Ha wrote:

BILLY WALTON from GEORGIA wrote:

I am thinking mine is stuck shut ...when I  get time  I  am gonna check it....might be why it is running crappy like its bogged down.
 

If it's stuck shut it'll be running really rich.  You'd smell that in the exhaust and see the black smoke. 

I'd guess you have a vacuum leak somewhere. 

It is running rich...I been working a lot lately and aint had a chance to look at it it much.
I wish I had another carb I could stick on it.
 

 
It would be easier and take less time to remove the air cleaner and look at the choke to see if it's your issue.

RPM, aka Bearing Bob wrote:

BILLY WALTON from GEORGIA wrote:

John Ha wrote:

If it's stuck shut it'll be running really rich.  You'd smell that in the exhaust and see the black smoke. 

I'd guess you have a vacuum leak somewhere. 

It is running rich...I been working a lot lately and aint had a chance to look at it it much.
I wish I had another carb I could stick on it.
 

 
It would be easier and take less time to remove the air cleaner and look at the choke to see if it's your issue.

The choke is staying shut I had the breather off ....I was showing Steve a picture of it and he noticed the vaccum advance hose was hooked to the manifold port instead of the carb port I am off tomorrow so I will work on that.

MS wrote:

Ron68 wrote:

I just finished rebuilding my Holley 4160 (450 cfm) on my 65 vert. It was stalling when going into turns occasionally and it had an off idle stumble. The choke was working fine, but it had those issues. I found some debris in the chamber that the power valve screwed into, but not much else internally. I did find that it had only six screws holding the throttle plate on instead of eight. The middle two were missing. After blowing everything clean, replacing all the seals and gaskets, I installed a new power valve. My old one was an 8.5 and the new one in the kit was a 6.5. I had adjusted the float chamber levels earlier, so when I replaced the float valves I had measured them with a feeler gauge. I set them to those settings, adjusted the idle mixture screws out 1 1/2 turns and set the automatic choke at the required setting of one mark toward lean. It had been on four, so the choke was a bit weak. I actually still have the choke stove setup.  It started and ran pretty well, and the stalling and off idle stumble are gone. Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up a vacuum gauge and fine tune the idle screws, and hopefully it will be good to go for a long while yet.

There are only six screws. Two holes do not have screws.

Well, mine do now. I found a couple that fit and put them in. Carb seems to work fine with them in. Will there be an issue with them in there? I'm a novice with Holley carbs....
 

Last edited by Ron68 (3/31/2024 9:42 PM)

Ron68 wrote:

MS wrote:

Ron68 wrote:

I just finished rebuilding my Holley 4160 (450 cfm) on my 65 vert. It was stalling when going into turns occasionally and it had an off idle stumble. The choke was working fine, but it had those issues. I found some debris in the chamber that the power valve screwed into, but not much else internally. I did find that it had only six screws holding the throttle plate on instead of eight. The middle two were missing. After blowing everything clean, replacing all the seals and gaskets, I installed a new power valve. My old one was an 8.5 and the new one in the kit was a 6.5. I had adjusted the float chamber levels earlier, so when I replaced the float valves I had measured them with a feeler gauge. I set them to those settings, adjusted the idle mixture screws out 1 1/2 turns and set the automatic choke at the required setting of one mark toward lean. It had been on four, so the choke was a bit weak. I actually still have the choke stove setup.  It started and ran pretty well, and the stalling and off idle stumble are gone. Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up a vacuum gauge and fine tune the idle screws, and hopefully it will be good to go for a long while yet.

There are only six screws. Two holes do not have screws.

Well, mine do now. I found a couple that fit and put them in. Carb seems to work fine with them in. Will there be an issue with them in there? I'm a novice with Holley carbs....
 

I need to verify since it has been a while since i looked at one, but I think the
center one can also be a vacuum port for power valve on some carbs.  They are always missing two screws from the factory.

Bullet Bob wrote:

Another issue with a stuck choke and very rich running is that the rich mixture washes the cylinder walls and promotes excessive cylinder/ring wear.  Probably not an issue with a car that you rarely drive but that's one of the reasons why new cars will go 200K +.  The EFI keeps the fuel mixture dead perfect in all conditions.  Back in the day, with manual chokes, people were always forgetting to open the choke after warm-up.

Also, it's about a five minute job to adjust that choke, or just fix it to be always open.Just sayin'.
 

thats is what I am about to do I  have not been off work to where I could till today...was also gonna verify if I had 12 volts to the Choke like Steve and later Ron suggested..

 

What did you find on choke?

Gut von.

Are your heater hoses tucked into base of valve cover and under the carb linkage?

That may affect your choke operation.