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Wednesday, May 6, 2026

STUBBORN START - BIG ASSIST FROM CHRIS M.

Once I learned I could spoon some gas into the carburetor, I've been able to start Mary Lou when she sat for a while.  We drove the car March 8 after waking her up from the winter, but when I went to start her in April, she wouldn't fire.  I ended up pouring too much gas in and got a spark and a backfire so walked away for a few weeks.

I bought some starter's fluid.  I Googled many times trying to determine if this was a step to take.  Old hotrodders like Walt Johnson told me to use it.

Our neighbor Chris Masucci (AKA Smartest Guy I Know) is moving to Peoria and our neighborhood was having a garage sale, so I walked up to pick his brain.  He offered to come down and check it out even though he was starting his new job in 2 days.

He sprayed maybe 3 times (usually takes once) and we finally got it going.  He was looking at our setup and he feels our choke linkage is binding.

This was on a Saturday.  Sunday morning, Chris texted me at 7 in the morning.  He had been researching this 😀

So, what you’ve got here is a stromberg 97 model tri-carb setup on a dodge red ram hemi. Lots of info on the Red Ram Dodge hemis online, take a look if you haven’t. At least I was able to identify the carbs and apparently it was a pretty hot setup back in the day for hot rods using those engines. I’m trying to find an article on the choke sticking, and I did come across a conversion bracket or kits of some kind to do a cable actuated pull choke from speedway motors and summit racing. I’m going to keep looking for choke issues and solutions.

https://www.stromberg-97.com/cms/uploads/2018/11/stromberg_owners_manual_web.pdf

I also found that the Ford flathead guys use those same style carbs a LOT on their tri-carb setups. Almost exclusively. So if you can find someone that does flathead hot rodding, I’ll bet you they can fix that choke issue.

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