'72 F250 Cold engine starts

[djohnstonpt]

We are starting our project with my sons F250. The engine seems to run great. Needed the points cleaned and carb adjusted but no big deal. The engine runs strong. I am sure it still needs a little adjusting here and there. Here is the situation. The engine starts great cold or warm. When the engine is cold the idle is rough and I need to warm it up for several minutes to run well with driving. Once driving it is great. Any quick ideas to work on to get it to run smoother on a cold start? Is this just the normal 50 year old engine performance? Thanks in advance for the conversation.

[MAK]

Automatic or manual choke?

[djohnstonpt]

Manual choke

[MAK]

My old carb’d engines have even in warm weather needed to be choked a little or a few minutes to warm up before they smoothed out. Maybe someone has some suggestions that I need also, but it’s just something I’ve always accepted with a manual choke (or a heat/vacuum activated automatic that wasn’t working right).

[Johnnewc]

Mine also runs a little rough when cold with the choke at first. You can try to adjust the idle speed with the choke on to see what works best. Then you should be able to drive off with the choke closed a little bit if you are in a hurry. Just don't forget to open it all the way when it gets warm haha.

[djohnstonpt]

We put on a new coil and switched to electronic ignition. No more points. The coil was the wrong coil and kept burning the points. Runs great now. Fires right up with no choke necessary.

[390FE1972]

Thanks for giving us an update. Great to hear you got it fixed!

[sargentrs]

Glad you figured it out!