Hey Everyone,

For the past few days, my 1975 Fury (318) have given me some trouble on cold starts. It is not something that constantly happens, but I did notice it more than usual.

Car is garaged at home, so it's not super cold. Few pumps on the gas then leaving the throttle half open and after 5-6 seconds of cranking, the 318 roars to life.

Now, once the car is started, warmed up or still cold, if I shut it off even after giving me trouble, it will literally crank for a split second and start right up. Everytime.

This morning the car refused to start, and every turn of the key, the starter would slow down and slow down, to just one rotation, and I might have abused the cranking a bit because after lots of 15-sec intervals I started smelling burnt caramel (or rubber ) and white smoke.
So my initial thought was that the starter was on its last flight. The carb have been rebuilt, the battery is 6 days old, oil is fresh from last week-end, engine idles perfect, no choke issue that I'm aware of.

I went to work and left the car alone, I bought a new starter and arriving home in the evening before mounting the new one in I decided to give it one last try. Fired right up after few seconds of cranking.

Any thoughts on what could cause hard starting?
Thanks!

 

Re-check the choke adjustment.....

 

When fully cold, it looks like after pumping the gas and before cranking, the choke plate isn't resetting and closing fully.
There is still a bit of an opening, that shouldn't happen, right?

 

You smoked the battery cables. It does sound like the choke needs adjustment.
Should have a combo electric/ mechanical choke. Remove the choke actuator and Adjust the bi metal spring

 

Getting a starter hot, bad cable connections, or even bad cables. Typical. Cables can corrode internally and become effectively smaller. A starter starting to go bad can heat up internally and "drag" when hot.

Could be any, or all, of the above.

 

Thanks guys, I'm going to carefully look at it over the week-end.

I'm looking over at Hemming's Lost Art of Choke Adjustment article since I don't know much about this.

If you know any other resources online for this subject, I'd love to hear it!

 

FORGET the choke until you get it to crank properly.

All you need to know about choke adjustment is in the factory shop manuals, here's what you have on a "late" Mopar

Choke electric heater on some models. Obviously, must be working. Will not affect cold starting, will affect warm up

Choke vacuum break or also called "pull off." This is a small vacuum pot on the carb which opens the choke a small amount on start. They do fail, and must work or will flood

Choke closing. The choke thermostat in the choke well must work freely and not have a bunch of rust, debri, grease in the choke well. The rod between there and the choke link on the carb normally has a "U" shaped bend in the link, which is intended so you can adjust the length. "In" the factory shop manual

And, all the linkage on the carb must operate freely, that is, not be all gummed up and corroded.

=====================================

Regardless of choke, it will NEVER start right if you have ADDITIONAL problems

Bad tune up, IE bad plugs, wires, cap, rotor. Problems in ignition, IE low voltage due to poor wiring

Poor starting spark DUE TO low battery voltage DUE TO bad cables, starter as above.

No fuel in carb.............there's a certain amount of "Modern Problems" that seems to be related to alcoholized fuel and evaporation. Make sure you have fuel in the carb. How? EASY. Before you touch the starter, get prepared. Get a flashlight, remove the air filter, block the choke open, and work the throttle while looking down the carb throat. The tiniest movement of the throttle should immediately start a "pump shot" of fuel from the accelerator pump. If not, crank the engine 5 seconds and try again. If this does not produce fuel, FIX IT. Do whatever it takes. You may need to look at tank venting. You may have a vapor lock / fuel boiling problem. You may need to convert to an electric pump

FIX the cable / battery / starter problem!!!!!

 

Thank you for the detailed info man, wow.

Well looks like I found the culprit (I hope): 4 plugs were very very dirty, and therefore probably not producing a spark upon start-up. Changed all 8 of them this morning, one push on the gas and it fired right up.

Let's see how it behaves, and hope this was the real issue. Shouldn't take long since it's my daily driver.

 

Random or all on the same side? Glad it's sorted out.

 

So much for "Engine Idles perfect" I guess.....

 

I did not see a difference in idling after changing the plugs, The engine idles the same you almost can't feel it run when sitting in the car.

But from what I can see so far is that it requires way less cranking, and the engine always fire up now.

 

Argh, ok I gotta bump this thread up, after a month of reliability, the Fury has decided to start whenever it feels like it. After changing the plugs I decided to change the tired old starter, and it started even better.
Some mornings it will fire up and after few seconds of gas pedal mashing, other times it refuses to start and requires multiple cranks that total to about 10-12 minutes of tries.

Now this is the f'd-up part: When key is turned all the way to "Start" the car cranks, but when I return the key past "ACC" all the way back to the "OFF" position, the 318 will rumble a bit, shake and it definitely feels like it tried to fire up! This doesn't happen when returning the key solely to "RUN" or "ACC."

In fact it sort of fires up but because the key is on the "OFF" position whatever it was trying to do stops.
So I have to basically crank the engine, turn back to OFF and as soon as I feel the rumble and shake, I quickly yank it back to the START position and the engine picks up from the faint fire/rumble and then starts. Everytime.

What is happening?

 

Are all the wires on the ignition switch tight????

 

I guess I'm so used to actually troubleshooting that I forget that some people "don't." You cannot just stand there and look at it, you actually have to diagnose it.

Get out your meter and do some testing. In "start" there is only one source of ignition voltage TO the ignition system. This comes from the ignition switch "IGN2" contact, goes through the bulkhead on the brown wire, and ends up at the coil + terminal via the ballast resistor on the coil+ end of the ballast

THE "run" line is COLD during start, IE "ignition run" or IGN2" the dark blue line

So clip your meter to the coil + wire, and ground, and crank the engine using the key. You should read very close to battery voltage and in no case less than 10V.

A better way is to clip one lead of you meter to the coil + terminal, and the other meter terminal to the starter relay battery stud. Crank the engine several seconds. During cranking, the meter should read only a few tenths of one volt, and the less the BETTER. More than .3.--.4V means you have a voltage drop problem to the coil

That is, bad contact in the ignition switch, bad connection at the switch connector, or in the bulkhead connector where the brown wire feeds through the firewall.

Check the SPARK. "Rig" a spark test gap right at the coil and crank the engine USING THE KEY. You should get a nice hot fat blue spark at least 3/8" long or longer.

 

Never a TRUER STATEMENT rite there... !!!!!!!!!!!

 

I'm not very skilled with car wiring, so I wouldn't even know where to start or what to access to diagnose. But now thanks to that precious info you've given, I can definitely do that!

The other reason why I did not suspected electrical issues was because once the car is running, it will ALWAYS restart instantly, cold or hot, or even 10 seconds after the first start.

Thank you!

 

I guess from your description I did not get that it (re) started in that manner. Your last would indicate "not" a voltage problem, but you never know

And..........I completely forgot to add the "run" side of things.

Turn you key to the "run" position BUT WITH the engine not running. What you are trying to do, here, is to determine for certain that the ignition is getting "good solid" voltage from the key "in run." Probe both sides of the ballast resistor with your meter. One will be much higher than the other.

Leave one meter probe hooked to this "high" terminal of the ballast, and transfer the other meter probe to the starter relay battery stud. As in the first test, you are hoping for a very low reading, the lower the better. A reading of more than about .3V (that's three tenths of one volt) indicates a voltage drop issue in the run circuit

Things that "seem to be" nowadays moreso with "alcoholized" gasoline..........

Carb needles and seats seem to be inferior and much more intolerant of fuel pressure. This shows up in a "hot soak" however, rather more that a cold start

Fuel seems to boil / evap out of the carb. Maybe? You have a tank venting problem. Your car would have the evaporative vent system, sometimes called "the carbon canister" and if there is something plugged in the vent system, that might be an issue.

One thing you might try.........is on shutdown when parking overnight, pull the filler cap off and notice if it seems to have a vacuum in the tank. AND try leaving the cap OFF overnight and see if it starts next day

The opposite might be happening...........something might be causing fuel to boil up / over into the carb and into the engine, flooding it in the morning.

The most effective things I did to my own Dart................

Went to a rear mount electric pump

Constructed a fuel return (orifice) system using a Wix 33040 filter which has a built in return orifice

Installed a carb heat spacer

THIS MIGHT NOT be the problem here

I finally went to a conversion EFI. Yeah, I know,..........expensive. But damn, it works

 

OK if I remember correctly the 1975 318 had a dual pickup distributor.. One pickup is the start pickup and the other is the run pickup... They are mounted opposite each in the distributor... It sounds like the start pickup is the problem... I think they are service as a set..Bill

 

It could also be the ballast resistor if it is a four wire.. I would also check the air gap of the pickup .006" with a brass feeler gauge...Bill

 

Yes! When it was hard to start all these days, I popped the air cleaner lid off and a lot of smoke/thick gas vapor was coming out of the carb. I do have that carbon canister tucked in front next to the radiator support.
I'll look into that and see what I can do to fix the tank ventilation.

So for the past two days, I've tried this:
Come home from work, removed the cap overnight and in the morning, behold, the dang thing started with barely any effort!
Drove to work, parked the car the whole day with cap on, hard to start at the end of the day.
I then let the cap on the second night at home, same trouble to start.
Lastly let the cap off at work the next day, and again, effortless to fire it up.

Dude, you are freaking amazing.

 

I've come to this thread late, but some of the ideas may help me. To focus: if I drive my 273 four-barrel every day ... boom, it fires right up. If it sits for a day or more, then it takes many pre-pumps plus lots and lots of fast-pumping while cranking. Never floods, and eventually will start. What could be causing this difference? Since I don't drive it every day, it's embarrassing when friends come to see my cool ride and it's such a pain to start.

 

Make sure the accelerator pump is working rite
Make sure the choke is setting
Fuel pump might be getting weak

Fuel evaporation is common now days... It dose not take long for the bowl to go dry after sitting. What I have found is. With all things in good working order. it takes about 10 cranks to get fuel up and in the fuel bowl... Once that is accomplished, Slowly pump the gas 3 times. that should do the trick.

Now if you don't run a choke.... you need about 5 pumps... crank the motor about 2 revolutions and then about 5 more pumps. and now you have it rich enough to start without what we call a lean back fire or sneeze....

 

Wow -- there is someone out there listening and with wisdom to boot! I'll try the suggested procedure, and also check out the possible system issues. Thanks.