Any help would be appreciated.
Terrible problems staring from cold.
Choke lever working and position changing on carb but doesn’t seem to be having much effect and car is almost impossible to start when cold.
When hot choke seems to cause car to stall not just increase revs.
Running beautifully when hot but waking the whole neighbourhood trying to get going on a cold morning.
New battery this month and presuming sparking ok - this carb was put on in the summer when I had running problems / loss of power with the old one so I have never started the car in winter with this carb.
Any ideas from any one of ideas re finding the fault / the eliminating components?
Thanks

With a problem like this, one has to initially go back to the basics---check tappet clearances, check timing and check that there is no air-leakage (caused by a warped bakelite spacer) at the base of the carb. The fact that it starts and runs OK when hot would indicate that the electrical side is probably all OK, but I would still get that side checked out, if not by yourself, by a competent auto electrician; preferably by somebody who knows what points and condensers are!

Old Petrol
Alan

So I gave in and got the good folk at Proietti ( who are luckily nearby )to check her out and do all the bits and pieces I didn't feel confident to do and apparently it was the points that needed adjusting. - the gap was wrong and causing the starting (& running ) problems. Valve clearances needed some adjustment but the timing was basically ok. I changed the carb to another I had , filters, plugs etc myself and the starting and running is good now.
The cold starting procedure I thought was a bit of a myth and I know each car is different but in the cold weather my 1971L with 650 126 engine has to be done like this, full choke leaver and then pull ignition... DO NOT TOUCH THE ACCELERATOR... start reducing "choke" almost straight away,
Anyway though it might be good to share how the problem was solved...
Next time I'll have the guts to try and check points gap timing and valve clearances myself.
Does anyone have a clearance measurement for the points gap in my engine?

Points gap on the 126 engine is between 18 and 21 thou (0.47 to0.53mm).

I would suggest that you look out for 3 publications, an original Fiat 500 owners handbook which tells you all about owning & driving the car. Fiat 500 & 126 Haynes manuals that will tell you all the how to & tech stuff in understandable terms.