carburetor icing?

[drehtwnftbl]

so here's my problem. when i start the car in the morning and when i start the car when it's been sitting all night, it runs very terribly. here's what happens. i start the car, and it takes two tries with the gas pedal about halfway down. after i have it started and it goes rough, but doesnt die, it will rev kinda high, like maybe a couple hundred higher than it should, and when i put it in drive and push the gas, it boggs down hardcore. it will pick up after about 5 seconds of it bogging down but usually when it shifts it happens again since the rpms go so low. This problem goes away after about 10 minutes of driving. this is in a 1989 tercel and is carbureted as yall know. other than that, the engine runs AWESOME!
i called a carb shop and the guy there told me it was more than likely carburetor icing. the solution to this would be make sure the heat shield on the exhaust manifold (where the warm air comes off of at first) is tight and the tubing from the heat shield to the intake manifold is tight. could this be the problem?

[NickR]

It's normal for cars to have a high rpm idle on cold starts, until it warms up. They are designed this way. I am a bit skeptical about the icing theory, unless this only happens on exceptionally cold mornings. Most carburetted engines have an automatic choke (in the olden days it was a manually operated choke) that raises the idle and the richness of the mixture for cold starts. They often malfunction. But I don't know the details of your carb, so can't help you, other than to suggest you put some light oil on all the external linkages of your carb, because it might just be sticking.

The normal coldstart procedure for carb engines is to tap the gas pedal once (to activated the automatic choke) then take your foot off the gas altogether while cranking. Have you tried that?

[ToyotaTechGeek]

usually you have to 'prime' the carb before starting it. sounds like you need to do so. yes, the pre-heater hose helps. it just sucks during warmer weather since it's hot air into the intake.

[drehtwnftbl]

okay, well yeah, that primer thing sounds about right. the temp in the morning here since november has been anywhere from 50 to below zero, and it always happens in the morning...i'm thinking i should just have the carb cleaned, since next week i'm changning out the head...