The Ford Capri Laser Page

Hello everybody,

The auto-choke on my 3.0s doesn't work, so I found a manual choke cable to convert it. Is this an easy job or more importantly, is it a good idea to convert an automatic choke to a manual?

Thanks and Happy New Year!

I've got a 40DFAV on my essex v6 at the moment and i switched from an auto choke to a manual. On the coldest day of the year your waiting for the coolant to get up to temp to pass through the water housing body on the side of your carb but with an auto choke you can have the butterflies closed straight away, let your engine idle for a few minutes rich fuel/lean air. Then open your butterflies and go. Thats just my opinion, I always start my car and leave it to idle for 5 minutes before leaving my house, I live on a steep hill and don't like to hammer my engine to get up the hill whilst it's cold.

hi mate where did u get the cable my auto choke dont work ether and itsa pain to sit with a few revs on for 10mins for it to warm up and stay running .

The cable was included in a box of odds, ends and spares when I bought the car. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

ok thanks

Does your heater give out plenty of hot air?
If it does then you're getting enough flow through the pipe that supplies the auto-choke to make it work. There's a coiled flat-bar spring inside the domed housing with rubber pipe in/out of it. Normal cold ambient temperature has this spring tuned so that the choke butterfly spindle twists the butterlfies closed. When the coolant gets hot enough, the metal expands - it's fixed at one end so the other end has to twist so turning the spindle it's attached to & the choke opens.
There's not much in there that can break so WD40 and a bit of fiddling should sort it. More info on my workshop page, click photo below:

Thanks, your workshop page is very detailed. I will have a go at fixing the auto choke rather than converting to a manual straight off.

If you do want to convert to manual choke you'll need more than just a cable - you'll need the complete kit.

There's also a rubber diaphragm as part of the auto choke mechanism. Make sure its still intact.

hi can i ask where ur workshop page is plz

What's in the complete manual choke conversion kit?

You can get to nigecapri's workshop page by clicking the photo in his signature.

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewit ... 1642482898

Something like this.

In classic ford a few months back I’m pretty sure they featured a genuine weber manual choke conversion kit, but I can’t find the issue

I already had the cable installed in the car from the old manual VV carb, and got hold of a 32/36 weber with manual choke conversion already on. Looks like this -



cable coming in from lower right.

Not the most complicated bit of kit, if you fancied having a bash at it yourself.

Go for no choke. Like ironing, you don't really need it.

That looks nice and neat, if the auto-choke is beyond saving, I will convert! I will also stop ironing.