late fall, winter, early spring

 

started lke a champ.choke seemed to work fine. fired right up whether first thing in the morning or at any time in the day after being cut off for any length of time.

 

seems 70 degrees plus outside and it starts being a pita to start again.

 

86 gl 2wd 5spd, feedback hitachi.

 

 

choke related?

 

thanks, Bill

You describe the exact symptoms that I had with my Hitachi.

 

My secondary throttle shaft bushing crapped out on me. Gas was seeping out of it. Here's the thread with a pic of the area...

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?t=98105

 

I found it by having somebody else crank it. I was on driver's side, looking at the throttle body of the carb just above the intake manifold. Flashlight helps and air filter housing off.

 

Could have nothing to do with it but that's my recent experience. Hope it helps. Good luck!

thanks.

 

did the same thing last year till the weather cooled down.

 

wonder why it only does it in hot weather?

 

thanks, Bill

I've been pondering that same question...

My thought on this only works if it's also difficult to start when warmed up, but not turned over immediately, like 10 minutes later or so... like it was with mine...

My guess is there's expansion of the metal at that temp to the point where the shot bushing (or dying bushing) reveals itself. When cold, the contraction of the metal sort of resists the effects of the dying bushing...? just a thought

Another theory. The leaky bushing is being a vacuum leak, which is causing it to be hard to start because the mixture's too lean. If the choke is applied because it's cold, that is richening the mixture enough that it starts even with the vacuum leak.

 

Maybe??

+1 on vac leaks.

Another thought if its only when the engine is hot, or a while after beng run,

it might be a flooding/percolating issue the engine is off and hot it can heat the fuel and force it into the engine. Try giving the engine just a little throttle while starting to put some extra air into the mix, but just a little or the accel pump will add to the problem. This issue has to do with fuels perhaps the summer blends there? I solved this on an old truck of mine with a phenolic spacer. Though that carb was poorly vented. Just a thought

my 81 wagon is starting harder now that its warm and i had an 84 toyota truck that started hard in the summer. i think its just because the choke doesnt engage fully when its warm - sticky or a bad spring or something

Come to think of it, my old '82 wagon had this problem too -- it would ALWAYS start when cold. But towards the end (rust is what claimed it eventually, around 220k miles) it had a harder and harder time starting when warm (never failed to start, but you'd have to crank it for 10 or 20 seconds sometimes) and it wouldn't idle very well. The shop said it was internal vacuum leaks in the carb... $300 to rebuild. I bought a new suby instead for $500.