Ah John, you're magic.

A couple of asides. Many cars around 85 in Oz had steel timing chains and sprockets. When these wore, they did so gradually and the engine just got rougher and rougher but would go for surprisingly long times. Since then, most timing "chains" have been notched "belts" of fibre and these are the ones that need to be replaced every 100,000 km no matter how well the motor's running. I discovered this in a Ford van I'd bought second hand; I stopped at an intersection and the motor just died. A similar situation in my Subaru had me tossed as the belt was only 75,000km old; it was also one of a pair and the other still worked. Well, a little bit.

Being a person who's had to routinely drive long distances I'm also aware of the traps when most of your driving is for short distances that don't allow the motor to run for any length of time at its proper operating temperature. Condensation doesn't just occur in the petrol tank, it can also occur in the sump. You check the oil level at the start of the trip and it's OK but, after you've run it for an hour or so, the level has dropped alarmingly because all the condensation has been evaporated by the longer duration of high temperatures.

Back to stalling when cold. Just outside my entrance the road to town climbs a couple of hundred metres over a kilometre or so. If I started before dawn, the Subaru would occasionally stall about half way up; I couldn't figure out anything as 'wrong' as, if I let it roll back down to the entrance and tried to start it it would generally go OK. Now, my grandfather's 1926 Rugby had this problem ( and also, like John's example, would go up anything in reverse) because the petrol was gravity-fed from the tank to the motor but I figured this wouldn't apply to a 1988 Subaru. The mechanic told me that it was just a little out of tune, enough so that the metal of the engine block and carburettor area was cold enough (at that time of day and before the motor had warmed up properly) to prevent the fuel-air mixture working properly. Tuning fixed it, as did letting the motor run for a few minutes before tackling the hill.

Cheer, Rowan