choke help please

[1973vwthing]

car won't idle if choke valve is fully open...car warms up...as butterfly valve opens car dies....this because i don't have air cleaner yet?..will that help with too much air?...checked for vaccuum leaks...none found...adjusted the volume and bypass screws on carb as per instructions....seems like it's just sucking too much air...pulled new plugs..they look a little sooty...not really oily looking..more like black soot...car idles fine without choke hooked up...even without throttle screw screwed in to affect choke engine speed...any help?...thanks everyone!!!

[Towel Rail]

Having the aircleaner disconnected won't cause this, but I certainly wouldn't run the engine long without one.

My brother's bug wouldn't turn over after doing our quick-and-dirty top-end rebuild. It turned out that the end castings were slightly angled to the head because we'd assembled the intake section as a whole first. Since there weren't any telltale sounds, it took forever to figure it out. Loosening up the assembly and tightening the end castings first fixed the problem.
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1974 Thing -- under the knife
1967 Beetle -- spring/summer/fall driver
1996 Subaru OBW (EJ22, 5-speed, AWD) -- winter car, 3-seasons "don't feel like biking today" car

049 > 070 > 053 > 009

[Woreign]

Have you checked your timing and ignition system? If the engine only wants to run rich (as evident from the sooting spark plugs) your timing could be off. Take a pen and make a mark on the distributor and securing clamp. Now you have a reference point. Try adjusting the timing by rotating the distributor and see if you can get the engine to idle with the choke open. If it improves, check the timing with a timing light and see if it is correct at the correct RPMs. Otherwise, you might have a faulty advance.