All Small Six 200 hard starting

This relates to all small sixes

lilred'62

New member
So I'm having an issue with the 200 in my 62 falcon. When I accidentally stall out it seems to take forever to get it started back up, seems to possibly be flooding itself. I'll sit there with the gas pedal to the floor and it'll crank, but doesn't want to turn over for atleast a few minutes of trying to crank it over. When it does finally decide to try and turn over, it's runs really rough and I have to hold the key until whatever fuel finally clears out and give it a few good revs. When this happens, a cloud of smoke comes out of the exhaust. This also happened the other day when I took it to the carwash, but I shut it off like normal and it sat for a few minutes while washing it. Could this be because the motor is flooding itself or could this also be a vapor lock issue?
 
Sounds like its Flooding to me. Probably time to put a carb kit in it and check the float isn't heavy with fuel from being cracked.
 
My dads 390 had an autolite that'd be kinda similar. Turned out it had a pin hole in the float. So it'd sink and cause it to flood.
Next time, turn it off in the garage, with the air cleaner already off. Then look down the bore and see if its dumping gas in. That will confirm flooding.
 
Hi lilred'62, if the carb is all ready in good shape then there are still a couple of other things that will help that issue. First is to use one of the mid 1970's 200 / 250 Six Thicker (Emissions Type) Carb Base Gasket's they are much thicker and in this case the thicker the better or you can stack some of the regular Gaskets to make one use like 3 or 4. Next is even better you can make a Carb Heat Insulator out of Plywood or better yet some Plastic like from a budget or recycling a piece of an old Cutting board of around 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick. Probably the very best idea is to also run a Fuel return Line back to the Tank though it was brought up by long time site member "xactsy" sometime back using one of the Mopar Type Fuel Filter's with 3 ports that makes the job much easier. As luck would have it just so happens another long time site member "wcol" also posted about his using this same Method this morning in quite a bit of detail. Check it out here than try it should be the best solution to your hard starting. Edited https://fordsix.com/threads/hard-st...mance-with-fuel-filter-vapor-seperator.84034/
 
I think I got it fixed, leaned out the automatic choke a little and turned the air/fuel mixture screw in a bit. Drove it around town a bit to get it to operating temp, drove it home and stalled it out a few different times and started right back up each time. Plugs were fouled really bad so I cleaned them up too. So time will tell if this fixed the issue and will take a look at the plugs again later down the road and do a little more adjusting from there if need be.
 
Try setting the Mixture screw to the Lean Best Idle than, and make sure the Curb Idle RPM is set right.

The Basic Stock Ford 200 Six Quick Tune Up spec's

Spark Plugs were the Autolite BF-82 or use the equitant in a Motorcraft a Copper Type Plug works even better. Fuel Pump Pressure is 4 ½ PSI. Compression Test should be with in 15 % from highest to lowest.

1. Gap Plugs for a stock Point Ignition to 0.034
2. Set basic Point Gap to .025 then set to 38 Degrees Dwell Angle.
3. Set the Base Timing to 8 Degrees B.T.D.C. for a Manual Trans or 12 Degrees B.T.D.C. you can also add more Base Timing until you find the engines sweat spot.
4. With the engine warmed up good set the Mixture Screw to get the highest Idle RPM then Turn the screw in 1/4 turn to lean it that is the lean best Idle setting.
5. With engine Warmed up good now set the Curb Idle RPM to 500 RPM for a Manual Trans and 485 for an Auto Trans with the Trans in Drive and the parking brake set or have someone set in the car with their foot on the brake.
6. I will repeat #5. & 6. again to see if there is anything left to fine tune. Best of luck
 
Hi, the engine should not just stall. If you have the original points and condenser ignition perhaps it is time for a new tune up. If so, find top quality tune up parts like Standard or Echlin, Napa should have them. If you can't remember how old the plug wire are, you may as well do a complete tune up. The tune up and ignition timing must be 100% before you adjust the carb. What is the ignition timing set to now? I would set that to @ 12* BTDC.Back when these cars were new, they needed the ignition tune up and carb adjustments every year, or @ 10,000 miles. Maybe the idle is just too low. Good luck
 
Hi, the engine should not just stall. If you have the original points and condenser ignition perhaps it is time for a new tune up. If so, find top quality tune up parts like Standard or Echlin, Napa should have them. If you can't remember how old the plug wire are, you may as well do a complete tune up. The tune up and ignition timing must be 100% before you adjust the carb. What is the ignition timing set to now? I would set that to @ 12* BTDC.Back when these cars were new, they needed the ignition tune up and carb adjustments every year, or @ 10,000 miles. Maybe the idle is just too low. Good luck
I replaced points, condenser, plugs, wires, and fuel filter shortly after I got it back in March. If I can remember correctly it was set at 12 degrees btdc and did everything according to an old Haynes manual. I just wasn't giving it enough gas when letting the clutch out, and had a rich air/fuel mixture.
 
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I replaced points, condenser, plugs, wires, and fuel filter shortly after I got it back in March. If I can remember correctly it was set at 12 degrees btdc and did everything according to an old Haynes manual. I just wasn't giving it enough gas when letting the clutch out, and had a rich air/fuel mixture.
Sounds like you got it resolved with the choke adjustment. It must have been set very rich to cause this, and possibly there is a choke to throttle linkage piece misadjusted or missing- when held at WOT the choke should be forced open enough to prevent cranking-flooding. . . I recommend removing the filter and verifying the choke blade is 100% fully open when warmed up. If it's not, lean the choke till it is. If that causes it to be too lean for cold starts, check your choke coil heat source, it's not being signaled to open sufficiently. Hot air tube, electric - verify that whatever is supposed to heat the choke coil is functioning at 100%.
Another cause of the same symptoms is the inlet needle not seating fully. The smallest dirt or metal flake can do it, as well as excessive fuel pressure. Will cause fuel to dribble past the closed seat, flooding at idle and after engine shut off, continues flooding during attempted restart.
 
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