VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 3rd Gear hesitation

Believe me, we knew the tricks.
When you are 40 miles from the nearest garage you learn things.
Learned most of what I know from Dad. He could and did start a 1937 Chev truck in -45 degree weather with a hand crank and no heat.
And we didn't give up easily.

Just want to say this though...
A well tuned Chev six with a manual choke (like a 1960 Chev 1/2 ton),and someone who knew how to use it, was the most reliable and invincible winter driver ever made.
Made us proud to drive Chevrolets.

Since the car is new to you and the choke screws were loose, I suspect the choke may be a secondary issue, possibly created when someone was troubleshooting the hesitation that you see. They might have been trying to make the mixture richer as I suggested above when I asked if you had a manual choke.

The bimetal coils can vary with extremes like Stovblt says but with patience you can often find a happy medium as Gene says but can take patience. Make sure the stove pipe tubing to the choke is intact and mounted properly.

Try setting the choke as Gene and Jon have directed above. See how close you can get it for now though I suspect you really should plan on getting the carb rebuilt properly over the winter by someone with experience and a test engine. Beyond that, you could have a few areas of "weakness" contributing to the flat spot - ignition side and/or fuel side. You might have to spend some time in the spring troubleshooting but you sound patient so will likely enjoy the process...

Fixed....for now.

I adjusted the choke with the engine cold. When I started the car and drove it out of my garage, it idled rough and even stalled. After a couple of attempts at keeping it running, I proceeded to take it for a test drive but turned back around because I knew I wasn't going to make it.

I decided to take another look at it. With the engine now warm, not operating temperature, I turned the choke adjustment to lean until the choke plate snapped straight up, vertically. I then secured the three screws with a washer in front of the original tangs because they were not holding the choke adjustment securely (I think that was the root of my problem).

I took the car out for a test drive and it is now running the best it has ever run. I guess the real test will be tomorrow morning when I start it in the cold to see if the choke is doing its job. If not I guess I can always fine tune it with trial and error.

The car wouldn't run right adjusting the choke cold, very strange.

Thanks for everyone's help.

could it be the power piston in the carburetor is messing up at times ?

I recently pulled my dist. on the 54 convert and found out the vacuum advance was defective I would test yours to make sure arm moves with vacuum source.