I finally bought a Bronco (woohoo!). The guy that sold it to me pointed out the choke and told me to pull it out before starting it, then push it in. Can anyone explain this more and the reason behind it. I've never had a car with this and want to understand it. I figured you guys could help. I look forward to learning more. Thank you in advance!

 

Typically this has to do with the fast idle cam on a carburetor.

But he left out part of it. The routine is actually floor the pedal, then pull the choke out all the way, release pedal and set choke to where it needs to be.

 

A manual choke assembly (as opposed to an "automatic" one) merely requires that you, the driver, tune the choke valve during engine operation. "All the way in" (assuming the cable is properly adjusted) means that the choke valve (butterfly) is fully closed and therefore the ONLY air coming into the engine is the pre-tuned idle air set by the mixture screw(s) on the carburetor. A cold engine needs more fuel and less air so cold starts should be done with the choke mostly or all the way closed. As the engine warms up, you will begin to feel the engine fall on its face due to the high fuel volume and relatively small amount of air getting into the engine. As this occurs, you need to pull out on the handle to open the choke valve and increase the air being drawn into the engine. Hot restarts, don't necessarily require that you fully close the choke to restart the engine. As for what position works best for your engine, that is something you will have to learn by ear and feel.

 

Grey, you reversed IN and OUT.

Pulling the Choke handle OUT closes the choke plate for cold starting.

Once started, pushing it in about half-way is a good compromise till it warms up.

Pushing the choke handle all the way IN opens the choke completely.

that is the normal connecting up of a manual choke, and all the chokes that I saw/used back in the real old days where there was only a manual choke all worked that way.

Everything else was good

 

Thank you tedster, greystreak and torky. I ended up being unable to start it when I picked it up yesterday! The previous owner came out and started it right up. This is going to take some getting used to! I will have to get a feel for it.

 

Torky,

The last manual choke I had to deal with was inverted. No idea why it was that way... besides, y'all know I'm a lil' bass ackwards anyhow!