After 7 hours of eye-uncrossing sleep, I have a thought. For the uninitiated in how the 85-86 Montero carb is set up, picture this: The choke is non-electric. It is what I call a water choke. Coolant flows through two small hoses, one into and one out of a fitting on the choke housing itself. One of those hoses leads from the engine and the other one leads to the 87+ fitting on the carb base housing. The idea is that as coolant warms up, the choke should open. However, I seem to remember an anomaly on the Clearwater head that we installed. I think they eliminated the coolant passage that would complete the loop, stopping coolant from passing through both the choke and the carb base as well.

Hmmmm...I guess I'm going to have to first look at the choke plate itself to see if it ever opens. If it doesn't, this could be it. The downside is that without some major mod, there's no way to make it function as it should. Keep in mind Jorge has a lot of money tied up in this set-up between the Clearwater head and the rebuilt carb and there's going to be a sad face if some other remedy is suggested like dumping the whole set-up for something completely different.

Also, this truck HAS to pass emissions, so there's that. We want to make this work, but I can't think of how just yet.

Unless we ran the heater hoses (somehow) as an inlet/outlet, just though the choke fittings and reconnected the little hose back to the carb base, 87+ style. Wait, how about just the return/outlet of the choke water line connected to the heater return line with a tee...? Something could work.

That is, if this is what's wrong. Just typing to let ideas come to my brain, since it's 4:05 a.m. and I'm not about to go out and try it in the dark.

John B.