How to keep the carb warm?

It's not even near freezing temperatures, but I am having problems with idle before all the underhood warms up. It's a ford 6 with warming plate under the carb, but there are spacer plate and gaskets in between and it doesn't warm up. Is there any other good ways of heating the carb?

 

Does the carb have a manual choke?

 

Does it have a bimetal snail in the intake to contol the choke? Does it have a vacuum assisted choke pull off? Two things to check. The choke pull of should hold vacuum if you push it in and put your finger over the vacuum port.

 

Make sure you have good coolant flow though that heater plate by checking how hot the heater hoses are.

You should have a hot air stove & hose to feed hot air through the aircleaner.

Check the exhaust heat riser if it had one.

 

check choke adjustments 1 if it closes 2 choke pull off diaphram working 3fast idle cam adjustments 4 the trap-door in the air cleaner closed and is the heat stove "tube to exhaust" connected

 

It has manual choke, but 5 minutes after I have started it and driven few blocks it refuses to idle no matter how much the choke is pulled. Fast idle is ok with it's fast steps and all.
Coolant flow is good, plate is warm but carb on top of spacers and gaskets is cold.
I don't know about heat riser on a 6 cyl ford, I am feeling that there isn't any?
This air cleaner is not ment to draw warm air, there isn't such nozzle/hose.

 

Carb icing happens at higher temps than you might imagine, its the humidity that counts, here in the pacific nw it occurs at 40F all the time, heating the air is the more modern cure but it UGLY on a hot rod. Get some heat to that base asap and find a gasket that will transmit the heat to it. Oh, Also try to keep the fan from slowing the warming process down by shading the front of the carb with an attractive? air cleaner.....

 

Oh, I forgot, to diagnose if it is icing, when it starts to run poor let it get pretty bad then stop, race out and look down the carb as soon as you can with a flash light, if it is icing the throttle plates will be covered with white frost or snow looking buildup. (no kidding) if you are too slow it will be only water droplets left.