hey guys, just bought a 87 chevy nova to putz around w/, the car drives great-nothing seems to be wrong except in the morning when I start it. It trys to start-after about the 5th try it starts-is this a sign of a bad starter or alternator? After the first start in the morning, it turns on fine later on . . .any ideas!?!?!?

thanks in advance

 

Dying battery would be my guess.

 

thats what I thought, but I had the battery tested at autozone-and the test came out good . . .any other ideas . . .

 

Before you try and start it when you know that it will give you a problem grab a flashlight, pop the hood, take your air cleaner off and pull your throttle back. A bit of gas will spray down to the intake manifold but not to much. Take a look down into the intake manifold and see if there is alot of gas just sitting in there, if so then you may have the problem my car recently had. My carb was leaking gas down into the intake manifold which caused it to have start problems like you describe. The solution is simple, rebuild your carb. The rebuild kit should be about 20 bucks, give or take 5 dollars.

 

Now, do you mean you turn the key to the start position and back a few times, and then the starter begins cranking - or that you have to let it crank 4 or 5 times before it fires?

If you have to fiddle with the keys before it starts....

Check the ignition switch. If the ignition switch looks good, continue down to the starter and ensure that the ignition line is CLEAN and FIRMLY attached. If that looks good, check the battery-> engine ground, as well as the main hot lead at the starter. If those look good, check the battery pole connections. If those look good - service/replace the battery.

If you have to let it crank - it's possibly a weak fuel pump or carb rebuild time.

 

GOY-I mean I turn the key . . .it cranks, I turn it off, then I try it again . . . .about 5 times, then it starts . . . only in the mornings this happens-it just did it again this morning

redbird_400-I will look at it tomorrow before I start it, and keep this post up to date. is it hard to rebuild a carb? never did it before!

*this wouldn't be because of a bad alternator or starter would it? I noticed that my alternator make a wierd noise-

 

If it cranks first time every time, don't waste time looking at a battery or starter, they are doing the job. Look for fuel or ignition problems.

 

Russ-what do you mean fuel problems . . .like what redbird was talking about or just bad gas?

 

Find out what kind of carb you have, any make and model # info would be great, then post it here. Rebuilding a carb is fairly easy. Just make sure you have enough working space to take the small parts off and not drop or loose them. I'll try to scan in a pic of basic carb troubleshooting later today. Its the one that came with my rebuild kit. You really just need a wrench and some screwdrivers but you might go ahead and get the o ring remover tool from the parts store. Its just some metal pick looking tool that makes life easier. Note that in some cases you may not need to completly take every peice of the carb apart, just the peices to replace the damaged seals, o rings and gaskets.

 

all I know right now, is that its a 1.6 4 cylinder (nock off toyota corolla-when the two companies came together to make this car) I believe the engine is manufactured by toyota if I'm not mistaken

will get more info on it in a bit . . .
for kicks, heres a pic of my baby (ha)

 

Thats the first good looking 91-92 firebird I've ever seen.

 

thank you josh

as for engine info-i think I saw somewhere that it is a L4-don't know if that helps . . . and on a sticker on the engine, it says 4a -

and when I plug my car into autozone.com, this comes up . . .

1987 CHEVROLET NOVA-IMPORT
4 Cylinders 096 4 1.6L 2BL

 

ok so I think I figured out what is wrong-and it was nothing really-I told my friend about my problem (he went to lincoln tech-)he told me that since its a carb car, that I should step on the gas about 2 times in the morning before I start the car, and that it would start up fine-did that, and it starts up like new every morning since I made this post

on a side note, my dumbass put in stp fuel injector cleaner last wee-which might have had something to do w/ it as well-so I ran the car till almost E, changed the fuel filter put in CARB cleaner and filled her up-runs great now

thank you all for your advice-I appreciate it