Reluctant cold start

[Donkey]

Good morning folks,

I have recently gone through the process of trying to balance the mixture of the carbs. by ensuring that the shoulder of the metering needle and the dashpot base are level, then turned the adjustment tool one and a half turns clockwise.
This gave a much better performance, so I obviously had a mismatch before. However, the engine would not like to restart after a hot run, so I enriched the mixture by half a turn and this solved that problem but she is reluctant to start from cold.
Ever since I have had the car cold starting has not been a problem, even after a winter break, so is the problem associated with the mixture, is it still too weak for example, or is it likely that something else is responsible?
I would note that no other work has been done on the carbs. that might muddy the waters.

As always your input would be most appreciated.

Brian

[Rubce]

How good is the spark from the coil kinglead? Try fitting a spare coil to see if it make any difference. Also what type of electronic ignition is fitted? Clean any excess oil off the sensor inside the dizzy. If it's the magnetic type, also wipe the magnetic ring.

I had a similar problem with our GT6 earlier this year and the above course of action cured it.

Regards

Bruce

[jakesmig]

You said the engine ran better after you adjusted the needle and base, fine, you have now found a good running mixture,and good cold starting, but you have a problem with hot starting. You have 1 problem.

To overcome this, you adjust the mixture making it richer, which creates a cold starting problem, and presumably your engine doesn't run so well as before,so, assuming the hot starting issue is erradicated you now have 2 problems.

You have a hot starting issue, which appears a frequent problem in the Stag community.

Re set your mixture to where the engine performed well in cold starting, which reduces 3 problems to 1, and look into the fixes others applied to the hot starting issues.

I have fuel injection so I can't help with your issue, but there must be loads of information regarding hot starting on the forum.

Is there no heat shielding to the carbs or pipework above the engine?

[elvimto]

LD Parts sells a rotor arm made from a different material green and says they have used it and it works well. They say that the regular material was causing an electrical problem have a look and read I just fitted one then my carbs started leaking so I have not tried it out as such, anybody her running this??

Rotor Arm GRA2133G

£7.20 INC VAT Best Quality Rotor Arm - Helps eliminate problems of WEAK SPARK when HOT. (Note these are to fat to go as Large Letter hence postage) Black rotor arms have been failing because the plastic used in the process contains more carbon being more conductive. Still more importantly, the rivet which holds the brass longer than the original, bringing it too near the underside. The high tension current, averaging 30,000 volts, finds the easiest route to earth and shorts out from the tip of the rivet, through the reduced thickness of more conductive plastic to earth out down the distributor shaft. Result - no sparks at the plugs. The situation sometimes rectifies itself on cooling, but then reoccurs with increasing frequency until the rotor permanently short circuits. No affiliation etc

[DJT]

Worth reading: http://www.distributordoctor.com/rotor_arms.html

http://www.distributordoctor.com/red-rotor-arms.html

[Donkey]

Thanks everyone, I'll investigate further.

Kind regards,
Brian