Electric Choke Short

[55 Fargo]

Hi all, last night decided to pull the air filter and see if my choke was working or not. The linkage seemed stiff, so loosened them up a bit, fired up engine, and it started first crack. I have noticed it has beenharder to cold start lately. This morning it was about 68 in the garage, decided to check choke again, this time hard to start again and the choke wasn't fully closed. Then I noticed each time I fired it up, I could see and orange glow from the back off the engine. Turned off the shop lights, aha, the choke wire was short, at the choke solenoid, I then tighted it up and the choke is working beautiful again. I am real lucky, having a spark tthat close to the carb is a recipe for disaster, someone/something is looking after me and this car. I do think I should replace the choke wire, any idea if it requires and special heat resiatant type wire , the wire looks like 12 gauge to me also.........Fred

[De Soto Frank]

Fred,

Couple of things here:

1) Choke Wire - #12 gauge; doesn't need to be anything special; you could use the stranded vinyl-insulated stuff from the home centers; like THHN conduit wire. The original wire sometimes ran in asphalt-coated loom, and was routed around the back of the cylinder head/block.

2) Connection for power to the Choke: the choke gets its power from one of the large studs on the starter switch: the one on the starter-motor side of the solenoid. The choke should get power only while the starter is in operation. (Just a double-check)

Since your car is Canadian, I don't know whether your starter solenoid is on the fender apron or on top of the starter; either way, run the choke wire down to the big post on top of the starter motor.

3) Terminal screw at the choke magnet: make sure this screw is not too long: if it is, it will ground-out against the housing underneath the terminal tab.

Glad you caught-up with your electrical fault before it got out of hand !

Once the Sisson choke is set-up and working properly, they're pretty reliable.

Good luck !