Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Morgan Threewheeler - Mine is almost ready...

It was an issue with the earlier cars, mine suffered but was resolved easily by the factory.

It might well have been the cold that was the issue, but I'm not sure how!

That's funny, I had a similar problem with mine a few weeks ago. I had gone out for an hours run, parked up for a couple of hours and when I came to go home, it just did not want to start. Didn't even fire! I was on the point of giving up before the battery flattened, when it caught and it has been fine since. Odd?

Mine has always taken at least half a dozen attempts to start form cold. My dealer thought they'd solved it by changing the spark gap but it's still rubbish. Any idea how the factory solved this cold weather starting problem for you, Asbojohn?
Car's in with M3W this week to get the uprated wishbones and I'm asking them to turn the steering wheel upside down so I can see the instruments: top spoke at 12 o'clock, like the early big Healeys.
Asked them if it's possible to top-hinge the clutch pedal so I don't have to hook my left leg up all day - giving me a sore hip!

Notlob

I've not experienced the cold start problem, what sort of temperature are yo getting the problem at?

My car always takes plenty of churning to start from cold, but always starts eventually. Fires along the way but doesn't properly catch.

A couple of times the engine revs have climbed to 2000 - 3000 rpm but removing key and restarting has sorted it.

It's been tricky to start all winter, any time when the engine's cold and the air's below about 5 deg C, which has been most of the time, it seems. Don't know whether it's an automatic choke problem, or the engine just prefers sunny California. Designed for crusing down the West Coast Highway I guess, not hacking around Kent in an English winter!
Notlob

When mine didn't want to start, it was also quite cold, probably around 5c. although it didn't occur to me that it could be due to that as I had done an hours run first. As a matter of interest, I was also getting a problem once I'd got it going, of the throttle not closing , causing the revs to actually rise during gear changes, that got worse for the rest of the journey, finally the throttle wouldn't close at all, causing the car to accelerate and the only way I could stop was by turning off the ignition. I decided that the thottle spindle was binding slightly, so I lubed it copiously with WD40, which seemed to do the trick, though I have hardly used it since, so don't know if that was the answer.

Has this happened to anyone else? A bit worrying if it has!

I wonder whether there was some icing in the throttle body?

I had an old mini (1275GT ) that used to suffer from that, with the same symptoms as Paul describes. In that case, some aluminium foil over the front grill fixed the problem. You don't see cars doing that these days. Might be hard to do on a 3 wheeler . Sticky throttle sounds like a different issue to the starting problem too

Hmmm, yes, I didn't think of icing, anyway it's had a good dose of WD40. I used to have an aircooled VW Kombi to which I had fitted an after market Holley carb, and had icing problems, solved by redirecting hot air off the fins of one of the cylinders I believe.

I don't intend to be using the 5 speeder too much in cold weather anyhow................