Carb problem.......choke messed up.

[05gt]

When I inherited my fairlane 8 years ago, it would start up fine every time. However, one day the car wouldn't start for nothing. Turns out I had to to under the hood and open the choke manualy to get it started. If I did not do it, the car wouldnt start. So everytime I've started the car since, I have to pop the hood and open the choke with the lever on the side of the carb, and when I put her away, I have to open the hood again and close it. I would REALLY love to solve this problem, and hope someone may be able to help. I don't have any "before" pictures for ref, and am unable to find anything that will solve this from looking online. I'm sure it's a easy fix, but can't figure it out for the life of me.
The first pic is the choke lever opened half way (lever with gold knob on top).  The 2nd pic is the choke opened all the way. (Gold knob is by the black hose)




The way it looks, this lever is supposed to be hooked to something, But i dont see where it's to be linked to.  ANY help to get this car running good would be GREATLY appreciated.

[deereford]

Hi, You have a later model Holly carb with a manual choke. It needs to be hooked to a choke cable inside the car. The six cyl 57 Fords had a manual choke, the V-8's all had automatic chokes. The cable gats clamped in the bracket on the diaphram housing and the wire goes to the arm. Hope this helps. Brad

[05gt]

Makes sense, but for the first couple of years I had the car, I did not have to open it, unless maybe it was left open all the time? There is nothing in the car set up for the manual choke? Maybe I'll look into getting a new carb that's a little more efficent.

[CDN.SD]

My guess would be that the choke must have always been open. Check that your accelerator pump is OK. If you have no choke (AKA open all the time) and the pump goes bad, the car won't draw enough fuel on it's own to start it. (It will also tend to stumble when you accelerate.)

If that isn't the problem, and you don't want to run a cable, Holley does make electric choke conversion kits for about $50. From my experience, they work well.

I recently put a small 390 CFM Electric choke Holley on a customer's Y block, and he loves the way it works.