It’s a pretty cool looker for an Ice Cream truck, so I hope for all ice cream lovers and pop-art lovers it hits the road again with a smooth running engine, soon.
Thanks! We do love it…Name it Marvin after the gut we bought it from on craigslist down in NC!
OK, life slowed down and I finally had time to investigate some more. Carb is a Carter 6-2228. Here’s another clue. When I start it after a long time sitting and when it’s cold out (winter = now). As soon as it starts, it will only run with the butterfly choke all of the way open, giving it full air. If you close the butterfly at all it stalls. I have to give it gas since with the butterfly open, the fast idle mechanism doesn’t make contact with the cam. Shouldn’t it run better when cold with the butterfly flap closed? Especially in winter. What could this mean? As soon as it’s warmed it, it purrs like a kitten.
It should also have a fast idle mechanism that contacts the fast idle cam. IMHO this may be the source of your entire problem. Why your fast idle linkage isn’t working is tough to tell from here. It could be, and this is only a hypothesis, that some prior owner removed linkage to disable the fast idle system in order to try to solve some sort of operating problem. Or someone might have put this on aftermarket and it could be an inappropriate carb for the engine. I’d recommend letting someone knowledgeable of carburetors look at it. Speed shops are often good at this.
Optionally, you could Google “6-2228 carter carb manual” and see what pops up. You might be able to get a pretty good description of how it should be properly set up. Of course, it’s possible that you’ll need to then determine why it was messed with in the first place, but you’ll never get there unless it’s hooked up right.
The fast idle mechanism does contact the fast idle cam if I have the choke set “right”. But then it want to stall when it’s cold so i have to set the choke control knob so lean that the butterfly is fully open, but the fast idle cam disengages because it “thinks” that it’s warmed up. I hope that makes sense. Why would it want the butterfly open when it’s cold?
Also, I checked the carb #'s and it seems like it’s for a slightly later model. (78-84 inline 6 300cid). Mine is a 74. Not sure why they swapped it out for a newer model?
Just think in terms of air/fuel ratio. A cold engine will have the choke closed in order to richen the fuel mixture by reducing the air involved. As it warms up the choke will open, thus increasing the air and therefore leaning out the fuel ratio. So if it will only operate with an open choke when cold, seems to me it is way too rich and on the verge of stalling at that engine temp and fuel ratio. Could be caused by the fuel leaking out of the bowl and into the intake manifold until the engine burns it off, or the thing is way out of adjustment.
Just in my non-pro opinion anyway.
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I concur w/ @bing above, at first glace anyway I’d say it is currently set up running too rich. With the add’l richness of a fully closed choke, it’s so rich it stalls out. I presume your Carter is a single barrel job, so what you need to do is adjust the idle mixture screw inward until it begins to stall out (at idle) when the engine is warm and the choke is off (open), then adjust the mixture screw out just enough, but no more, so it idles ok warm. Then it should be set up properly, lean enough that it’ll need the choke closed to idle well when the engine is cold. And with the closed choke the fast idle cam will bump the idle speed so it doesn’t stall out when cold.
Another thing to check, when starting it cold, before actually cranking the engine the choke butterfly should completely cover the opening; then as soon as it pops and starts running the choke should pop open slightly. With a clearance say of about 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the edge; i.e. still almost fully closed, but not entirely. That slight opening of the choke butterfly after it starts is done by the carb’s choke-pull off function. There’s a sort of standing joke on the Car Talk radio show about the choke pull-off, b/c apparently in the early days of the show that was what Ray and Tom said was the problem to most of the callers “ok, we know what’s wrong, you got a choke pull off problem just like the last 4 callers” … lol …
Of course there’s other things that could be causing this. The carb may be adjusted too rich b/c you got a big and as yet undiscovered vacuum leak somewhere. Or the carb may just not be working correctly b/c some of the internal passages are clogged up or worn out w/use. Or the last time is got rebuilt it got put together incorrectly, which might cause the fuel level in the bowl to be too high or too low. Or a clogged idle bleed port etc. Do you have the instructions that come w/the rebuild kit on on how to set it up? That’d be a good place to start. The thing you got in your advantage, I expect this is a pretty simple carb to set up. I doubt it uses metering rods.