Engine floods when cold and idling

brianp · Post by **brianp** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:23 pm

I have a weird problem right now.

When I head to school each day, I first drive several miles on country roads at around 50mph, and then enter the town, and drop down to 30mph. Getting to this point only takes about 5 minutes, so the engine still isn't warmed up. Then I reach a stoplight, and if I have to stop, the engine rpm's are in the 800's, and if I'm not careful, it will shudder and die, and it will take a while to restart it. I'm pretty sure that the engine is flooding itself, because giving it gas when it shudders will kill it, and I can't step on the pedal when trying to restart, as that just prolongs it.

Any idea on why the engine would be flooding itself? I think it might be that after running at 3000 rpms, and then coming to an idle, it might still be dumping a little more fuel in than it should. I can prevent if I keep a foot on the gas, and keep it around 2000 rpms at the light.

This only happens when it is a cold (40Ã‚ÂºF) morning, so maybe the gas is condensating inside the carb.

Post by **ARCHINSTL** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:19 pm

Mine does the exact same as yours until hitting the half-way mark on the temp gauge; afterwards, it is just fine.
Since it did this before and after my many ministrations (including a rebuilt carb), I just assume that it is tired after 171K - kinda like its owner...
om M.

Mac · Post by **Mac** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:31 pm

my tercel used to do something similar when it was cold years ago, you would come up to a light and it would start idling poorly and then die if you didn't pump the gas a little bit.

I really couldn't tell you what it was though, since then i tinkered with so many things (back in highschool) that it seems just fine now.

If i was you, i would check, theres no vacuum leaks, ignition timing, spark plugs, the various check valves, egr vacuum modulator (the brown round thing abve the EGR) aren't installed improperly or plugged, etc etc

that will cost you nothing to check that, spraying the hell out of the carb with "carb and choke cleaner" when the engine is running helped my tercel out alot too, make sure you get everything in there, you'll also have to rev it up from time to time by hand to prevent the engine from stalling.

takza · Post by **takza** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:02 am

Mine goes thru something like that...a period where it will tend to stall before it gets warmed up....but it doesn't run rich.

It's easy to take the cover off the air cleaner to make sure the choke is opening OK as the car warms up.

If it's flooded...starting it with the pedal to the floor should help it go....if not try pumping the gas some...might be starved for fuel?

brianp · Post by **brianp** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:40 pm

Well, last night I sprayed the entire outside of the carb with carb cleaner, getting off some gummy deposits (I've done the inside of the carb before recently, so I didn't bother doing it again), and then ran it this morning, and lo and behold, no problems!

So I guess one of the linkages wasn't operating properly or something. Still, seems weird.

I was looking at the hoses, and noticed that some seemed pretty worn, so I'll probably be replacing those sometime soon.

Anyway, thanks for all your suggestions, sometimes I don't know where to start.