My '79 SA has been sitting for a couple years. It ran when parked, but suffered from a swiss cheese exhaust system. In fact, that was the reason my brother gave up on it, despite only 87k original miles.

I went to go pick it up and drive it the 60 miles home this last weekend. Here's what I found; It started fairly easily. Almost immediately it appears to be running on one rotor however, and will not idle. After some jacking around with the ignition, I decided the problem was not spark related.
Then I moved on to the carburetor. As I pulled the air cleaner off, I noticed that there was a screw, a tiny brass cylinder, and the accelerator pump outlet thingy (not a carb guy, could ya tell?) jumping around freely in the primary barrels.
Soooo, I took the screw and used it to reattach the accelerator squirters between the two primary carb inlets. I didn't know what to do with the little brass cylinder thing leftover. I imagine it went underneath the screw, but couldn't know that for sure.
When I started the car next, I noticed that the half of the carb closest to the front of the car, was not squirting any gas. As I peered at the bowl for that side it appeared to be empty.
Next I took the fuel feed off that side of the carb and blew compressed gas into it. All that did was blow gas in my eyes. The bowl remained dry the next time I started the car.
What should I do next?
I have a spare carb of unknown quality I could try if there's no easy answer.

 

Car sitting that long, I'm surprised it started and got you down the road. Time for a carb rebuild. Download the carb manual from my sig, order a rebuild kit from AutoZone. The manual will show where the brass weight goes, which is under the AP squirters.
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take your gas lines off at the carb and get some cleaner in the hoses, you could try gentile air like a air duster for computers and see if its just got build up in it.
Also check for spider egg sacks, i had one carb that had that problem.

 

Trochoid has the right idea, but i would order some bigger jets to give you a little more kick, you might as well wile you have it apart.

 

Oddly, Jeff20B has found that smaller jets may give better power since our rotarys tend to be rich so the exhaust can burn off the pollutants. Leave the jets alone for now. Just getting through a carb R&R is a task in itself.

 

More pictures here

 

Oh man. I wonder where that AP check ball went.

 

Aside from the missing parts, what is probably happening is that the float needle in the front half of the carb is stuck. Some people have simply banged on the top of the carb to free these up (use something plastic so you don't damage anything).

However, since there is a bit more to your issue I would recommend a full rebuild of the carb. Good luck to you....


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With any luck, it stayed in the bottom of the carb passage. Those check ***** are known for getting gummed up, and sticking, so check it out, you might get lucky.
If it didn't stay in there, it likely went out the exhaust, after making one or more rounds thru the engine. Luckily, it's small enough that there is a good chance it didn't hurt anything on it's way thru the engine.