Please pardon our dust while we improve the website over the next few days.  If you need anything please feel free to call 616-301-2888 or email Mike.  Thank you!

Q & A: Manual Choke Conversion

Hi John,
I would like to hear more on the subject of Manual Choke Conversion for my 1980 MGB. I have been having a bit of problems with my auto-choke and would like to see about getting a Manual put on. I live on Maui, so, of course, I don't have cold mornings starts to worry about.

I wrote you some time ago about a manual choke conversion and you set me straight and it works very well here on Maui. Now I have another question to ask you on my MGB.
Just recently, as I am driving on the very few straight-aways of an island, at between 55-60 mph, my car begins to start cutting out and I look in my rear view mirror and see smoke coming from the exhaust. (This happens more frequently as time goes by.) I adjusted the valves and haven't seen much difference. I did a compression check and the #1 cylinder is at 155, #2 is at 145, #3 is at 60 (!) and the #4 is at 155. Can I assume that I have a bad valve? or.......what is your recommendation?

Thank you for any info you can give me.

Aloha

The problem was a cracked head on the #2 piston. (I don't understand the dip in compression on the #3.) However, I totally went throught the engine, bored and replaced the pistons and replaced the head with an aluminum head. Also found that the Zenith carb was pretty worn down and reluctantly, I replaced it with a weber. The car now has never ran so good and I'm getting around 7 miles per gallon more.

Larry!
The manual chokes are available from various merchants and come with fitting instructions. If you want to do the job "properly" then follow the instructions in my Stromberg article.

You have probably alread... read more