So I had my Carburetor looked over by my shade tree mechanic friend, who is knowlegable and trustworthy.
He said that the Choke setting was OK and did not detect any vacuum leaks either.
He said that one of my relatively new spark plugs was fowled. He reccomended a new set of plugs. The said plugs installed last were Champion, which apparently are bad.
We are trying to diagnose a very rough running (missing) cold engine. When it is warm, it is still detectable by hearing an interminent miss at low idle.
He said he sandblasted and regapped the plugs and now it does not “load up” anymore and the extremely rich smell from the exhaust is gone.
So could the spark plugs be the culprit or am I looking at something else here?
Generally the car runs and drives well, it’s only scary during the first few minutes of operation with a completely cold engine.
Thanks - jmw
Sounds like a burnt exhaust valve. Look through the glass window on the carb to see if the fuel level is visible. If it is visible, you should be alright as far as the carb is concerned. If the floats are the black plastic ones, they should be changed anyway because they are way too old. If the fuel level is way too high, the float has filled with fuel and really has to be changed. Not a really big job. Don’t try to adjust the float level from outside the carb. It’s too tricky. I don’t think the floats are bad, but if they have never been changed to the copper looking ones, it could happen. Never use anything but NGK or ND plugs in that car.
It doesn’t take much to cause these little issues like this on those cars. I’d splurge and get the whole thing tuned up. Get four new plugs, a cap and rotor, maybe plug wires if they look rough, check the timing, adjust the mixture and idle settings and I’d bet that’ll take care of it. If you can have your shade-tree friend do it, it’ll cost you maybe 25 bucks in parts, plus beer. And, honestly, I’m as much of a fix-it-instead-of-replace-it type as anyone, but spark plugs are really cheap and cleaning and regapping them is sooo 1960.
Stick with the OEM plugs for the Accord. OEM plugs are NGK. They are FAR SUPERIOR to Champion…especially when used in a Honda.
Agree . . I tried Autolite, Champion and Bosch in my 89 Accord, never was happy with them. Go with the NGK. Next thing I’d do is a set of wires, a new cap and rotor. While you’re doing this you can look around for loose/disconnected vacuum lines. What year Accord? How many miles? Rocketman
Just to be sure of where you are coming from, you have owned this car for a while and it worked better than this in the past? I ask because for someone that has only driven cars with injected engines, a carb?ed engine will perform in shocking ways in substantially cold weather.