As long as I've owned this 86 Samurai its had a hard time on cold start up, I haven't started changing parts yet and Im pretty sure the choke on the stock carb isn't functioning right, last time I looked the choke plate would stay open when cold. It doesn't seem to me that the choke alone would cause such a hard start, especially this time of year, so I thought posting this I could at least get some opinions and ideas from people that have experience with this. I do have a replacement stock carb (I'm in Ca.) that I plan on installing some day.

The video bellow shows a cold start, I had to cut the video short so there were actually a 4 or 5 more attempts before this not shown. Sorry, the audio is low. I pump the gas pedal several times during this video. When it does start its rough and low rpm but will stay running. I raise the rpm's with my foot and hold it for about 20-30 sec., seems to clear it out, idles pretty good but still not a fast idle after that.
 

yamahablue - IMG_0542.mp4

After it idles for a couple minutes its almost as if the choke starts working, the idle will gradually increase on its own and stay at about 1300-1400 rpm while it warms up. Shown bellow.
 

yamahablue - IMG_0543.mp4

This last little vid shows how it fires right up when warm.

yamahablue - IMG_0544.mp4

it could be the choke, have a friend hold the choke on for you.

Ill try that. So you think the choke alone could cause such a hard start? That would be nice, then the problem would go away with a new carb.

if the carb is good, these engines will cool down just shopping in a grocery store for a short amount of time, I would try to fix the carb you have now if its not out of the question, at least you know it runs good when warm.

I got a chance to mess with the sami for a few today, I didn't have an extra hand so I wedged a linkage over toward the top of the carb , I think it closes the choke plate  . Its been about a week and a half since I started it last, I gave it a couple pumps, turned it over no start, tried again and it fired up but started racing to around 2500 rpm, it seemed high so I released the linkage that I had wedged over, the rpms dropped but then it ran worse than ever before. Kinda seemed over choked, I moved some linkages back and forth and tried turning it off and back on a couple times but still ran like crap, then the last time I tried it raced up to 2500rpm again, It was running smoother but 2500 rpm still seems high, anyway it gradually started dropping rpms back down to idle as it warmed.

Is 2500 rpm normal fast idle? And how long should it run at fast idle, this didn't start dropping till the temp gauge got up to the normal range. Doesn't seem right or good for a cold motor to instantly jump up to 2500 rpm's.

I have a 1990 f.i. samurai that runs about three thousand rpms on start up, it has done that for a couple of years, changed a couple of parts trying to get it lower so far no go, I can pull a wire off of it and it will drop down so I might have to put a toggle switch on it, but so far even at 20 deg. it does not seem  to hurt it.

It's kinda wierd but after manually messing with the choke, pretty much just moving things back and forth, now it starts up a lot faster and goes into a fast idle. Problem now is that after only a few seconds, while its running at fast idle it starts to run like rough like the choke is not backing off.  If I manually open the choke plate it will smooth out and continue to fast idle. After a couple minutes I can let go of the choke and it start to work on its own, running smooth and gradually coming down to hot idle.

What controls the opening of the choke plate? It must be seperate from the fast idle linkage because it seems to only need the choke closed at start up and then wants it to be open to run smooth.

Ok, after reading through the fsm it looks like I need to look into the choke pull off components.