WWC3 issues

Rick in MN

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Hi there,

I have a '66 Monaco 4-door sedan with a 383 2bbl. She has 57,xxx original miles and no rust. For a car that never left St. Paul, MN until 2019, she's in spectacular shape.

She's pretty cold-blooded, though. Upon initial start, she shudders and shakes, and leaves a black, sooty, and wet mess on the garage floor. No blue or white smoke. But once warm, she idles smoothly and runs well. She'll lay rubber from a stop, and shove you in the back when you mat it on the freeway. And there is never any knocking, pinging, or dieseling.

I've rebuilt plenty of carbs, but this one is a bit intimidating for some strange reason. No, I'm not upgrading to a 4bbl in the near future. Any tips on what to look for the most on this particular carb rebuild? What's most likely to cause the cold-bloodedness and sooty exhaust?

Many thanks,

Rick
 
:welcome: Rick. We need pictures or we won't believe you and figure your making everything up....:poke::)
Sounds like a choke adjustment is in order. Follow the FSM procedure for initial setting and fine tune from there.
 
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She has a couple bumps and bruises. A bus hit her before I got her and the LF fender is pretty bad off. I'm not sure what happened to the passenger front door. You can see it has a good crease in it. The good news is that I have the trim for it - just need to fix the body first.
 
:welcome: Rick. We need pictures or we won't believe you and figure your making everything up....:poke::)
Sounds like a choke adjustment is in order. Follow the FSM procedure for initial setting and fine tune from there.
Had a similar issue with my Monaco. Turns out the choke spring in the manifold well was not connected to the pull-off rod.
Condensation at cold start might just be from warm exhaust hitting cold exhaust pipes. Goes away as pipes warm up.
 
Grab an online service manual if you don't already have one.

My '68 Polara has the 383 2bbl and wouldn't change it for the world. The carb section details the fast idle setting as well as the choke setting. They are kind of cold blooded right at start.
Even in my 65 degree garage, it wants to warm up a couple of minutes at fast idle as the choke slowly disengages, before disengaging the fast idle.

Also check your owners manual on the starting procedure. For a cold start push the pedal to the floor and let all the way off. This allows the choke to close and the fast idle step to engage and works really well to start. On hot starts you push the throttle open part way for the best starts and so on....
Here is the link to get a manual.

Service Manuals – MyMopar
 
One more, a youtube for your viewing pleasure about the 1966 carburetors. Chrysler Master service technician training. You got to love the old style training slide shows.

 
Well, I suspect you won't find what I'm going to mention in any service manual, fwiw.

It was quite common to torque-down on the carb wingnut to ensure the air filter was "tight" in its housing. You can see where the area where the carb stud is screwed into the carb air horn is. Right over where the vac passage for the power valve piston is located AND the rear wall of the float bowl.

With time and over-tightening of that air cleaner wingnut, a force will be exerted into that area of the air horn. Which will, over time, raise that area of the carb upward. Can't see it, but it does. UNLESS you flip the removed air horn over and put a straight-edge on that area of the carb OR look at the air horn gasket for fuel going "over the dam" tracks.

How do I know this? When our '66 Newport Town Sedan was still a used car, we had the carb rebuilt at the dealership. It worked well, but only got 12mpg average afterward. I asked the old-line Chrysler service manager about that. He mentioned the "warped air horn" and that he'd filed that area of the carb flat using a piece of plate glass as a guide, in prior times. Which is when he mentioned the wing nut torque issue. Back in those times, it was quite common for the factory "dry element" air cleaners to have a base and a top that covered the filter element. As everybody wanted the filter to work well, they usually tightened the wing nut to ensure it was tight, then a little more for good measure.

I devised a two-gasket solution. Two air horn gaskets with silicone-type sealer between then, a bit thicker in the middle than on the ends. Which worked, until the gas made the silicone expand.

When the weather turned cold, the choke would act like it was not coming off soon enough and "fog mosquitoes". Which also meant that in coming to a stop light, I'd need to use one foot on the brake as I throttled-into it to keep it running. When it got warm enough for the choke to open by itself, it was fine.

What I later figured out was happening, after looking at things closer, was that when the choke closed, it placed a low-pressure area near that central area of the air horn, where "the dam" is. Hence, the added vacuum in that area was pulling raw fuel out of the float bowl (correct float setting!) and into the throttle bores. Hence, the very rich mixture until the choke opens up more. So it was off to the auto supply for a carb kit to make a new gasket with.

What I later did was to get a Holley 2210 2bbl (1970 Chrysler 383 spec carb) to replace the Stromberg. A bolt-in fix that ran better with better fuel economy and throttle response. And about 20mpg at 55mph on the highway (this was all happening when the 55mph national speed limit happened). BUT . . . it later would also be a victim of the wingnut torque issues, too. EXCEPT that Chrysler had a bulletin and fix kit for it! Which worked, too! "Bridge Kit" they called it.

The deal is that you can "kit" that carb as many times as you might desire and it won't fix the air horn warpage. No matter what.

Just my experiences,
CBODY67
 
What I later figured out was happening, after looking at things closer, was that when the choke closed, it placed a low-pressure area near that central area of the air horn, where "the dam" is. Hence, the added vacuum in that area was pulling raw fuel out of the float bowl (correct float setting!) and into the throttle bores. Hence, the very rich mixture until the choke opens up more. So it was off to the auto supply for a carb kit to make a new gasket with.


CBODY67
I experienced the same problem but mine was the float was set to high by whoever was in the carb before me.
I reset the float level and the black soot out the tailpipe when cold stopped.

Didn't have a drivability cold problem though.
 
Thanks to all for your suggestions! My Monaco is out for a front suspension refresh and as soon as I get her back I'll look at it and report back what I find.
 
I've found putting your WWC on a manual choke cable helps warm-up performance IFF you know what to do with them. It's absurdly easy to do. I've got 2 years out of the current rebuild so far with good results. I DO take care to try avoiding strain on that air horn also. That eventually ruins things, no doubt of it.
 
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