Re: Chrylser 15 hp hard cold start, poor idle and stalls
Sounds like my '81 motor. If you've got a manual (I'd highly recommend one) the job is fairly easy, even for someone with little to no mechanical skills (like me, but I'm learning fast!).
I ended up doing a complete carb rebuild, and a timing adjustment.
The carb rebuild is fairly straight forward. Remove, clean well with carb cleaner, replace the needle & seat, reassemble. This fixed the hard starts. I suspect the jets, both idle and main, were clogged, at least a little.
To fix the poor idle/stalls/misses, I had to advance the timing a bit by screwing in the "stop" screw on the throttle connection to prevent it from retarding too much. You balance it out so that the throttle is "full closed" at the bottom end the throttle, but still runs smooth. Basically, as the throttle closes, the timing wheel (which controls the throttle lever cam on the carb) turns clockwise. You want to make it turn a "little less far" when you reach low idle... you may need to adjust the throttle linkage a little to get the throttle to the right spot.
Then set your idle mixture. Turn in the idle screw fully, then turn it out 1.5 turns. Start the engine, and adjust upwards until the engine runs rough (slow movements), then downwards utill the same happens. Set the adjustment 1/2 way between the extremes.
