You think you have trouble starting your car on a cold morning?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

That took a bit of effort!

Neil

[Joseph Noci 1Participant @josephnoci1]

Nice One Neil!

There are many utube videos with engine starts as the theme ( some steam as well) – from old aviation engines, tanks, trucks, ships, etc and, for some odd reason, I am hooked on watching them…

Joe

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

wouldn't fancy having to do a push start

[Grizzly bearParticipant @grizzlybear]

Not much thought for the batteries and starter motor. Typical driver!

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Should’ve got some decent Welsh steam coal.

Edited By V8Eng on 16/02/2021 18:37:38

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

If it had to have an MOT it might be a bit marginal on the smoke test

 

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 16/02/2021 18:40:14

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

One of the more senior members of our club was a fireman on the GWR and a driver on GWR and BR. He says that the multiple units would go flat overnight on shed so they were just left running instead!

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 16/02/2021 18:47:32

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

Kigas? Easystart?

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Should have had a lamp under the sump !

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Kigas, yes. Easystart NO.

The ether tends to wash bores clear of oil.

Have you seen film of an Alco loco starting, even under reasonable conditions? As bad if not worse than that Class 50.

At -30C if an engine cranked for more than 30 seconds before first fire, it was deemed a failure.

The electrician at Bognor depot once timed a bus that had stood outside overnight, cranking for SEVEN minutes before it self sustained! The starter and cables were too hot to touch by then I would imagine.

Quite often, first fire raised the cranking speed, so that a second cylinder joined in, and as the cranking speed increased the others came in, in turn. The end result was a great cloud of unburned fuel from the late comers!

Which is probably what we are seeing here.

Howard

[Pete WhiteParticipant @petewhite15172]

Posted by Phil Whitley on 16/02/2021 18:52:10:

Kigas? Easystart?

Once you needed Easy start it was the begining of the end, burnt all the crap out that was sealing your rings.

I once had a Landrover with 2.2 BMC diesel fitted that fired up like that, cold Start button, that just chucked loads of fuel in, good for going up hill loaded, they were not supposed to be accessible from the driving seat, it used to fill the yard with Fog.

Pete

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

This should get it going.

[Pete WhiteParticipant @petewhite15172]

Pilot error, dual post, I blame the internet. 

 

Edited By Pete White on 16/02/2021 19:14:47

[john halfpennyParticipant @johnhalfpenny52803]

One very cold morning I was instructed to hit the starter on an ancient double deck Leyland, and not release until told. The owner operator soaked rag in easy start, lit it with his fag, and threw it into the air intake. The engine clattered into life one cylinder at a time over nearly a minute. I was only then instructed to let go. A life lesson.

[ZanParticipant @zan]

Gee you can’t get decent coal these days I wonder where it came from?👻

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

Posted by Nick Clarke 3 on 16/02/2021 18:47:06:

One of the more senior members of our club was a fireman on the GWR and a driver on GWR and BR. He says that the multiple units would go flat overnight on shed so they were just left running instead!

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 16/02/2021 18:47:32

They used to do this at Tonbridge with the Hastings Line DMUs – when the inevitable letters of complaint were printed in the local rag, a BR representative would explain that the engines were worn out and would be unstartable if left to cool down overnight.*

Of course being left ticking over all night glazed the cylinder bores, making the engines even harder to start, and making them produce steam engine-like clouds of smoke. It wasn't limited to DMUs. BR was so cash-starved in its latter days that apparently they couldn't afford batteries for the big single unit diesels, and wrecked the engines by leaving them idling all night. Of course everyone involved with the motive power side of things knew this was a stupid thing to do, but … politicians.

*I seem to recall it was said that the Sulzer engines in these had negative clearances when cold, so the donkey engine, which was plumbed into the same cooling system had to be started a couple of hours in advance to warm the engine up so it could be cranked over.

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

When they couldn't get the A&AEE Harvard started after the first few attempts you had to take the plugs out, whether for cleaning or replacing I don't know, but it's not a task that looked fun!

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

We once started a truck at MIRA by holding a flaming rag over the air intake (The injection pump provide excess fuel, for starting, but was so worn that when checked it was at normal running level). Once running it was still good for nearly 60 mph around the track.

Didn't think that Land Rovers had excess fuel (No production DPA provided it) My Sries 2 relied on heater plugs. Substituting a CAV Thermostart which heated the ingoing air with a flame much improved cold starting!

The Leyland PD2 and PD3 used a CAV fuel, injection pump fitted with a governor which provided excess fuel, and were ready cold starters.

The same 0600 engine with a DPA without excess fuel was nothing like as good.

A lot of modern engine ECUs keep the heaters energised after start up to prevent light load misfires and smoke.

The fuel supplied has a great effect on starting, smoke and running. Cetane value and calorific value have a huge effect.

Howard

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

The last ditch engine start technique for temps here in Canada for days below -25 deg C at the family garage was to take a pint pouring can (with thin spout), put a few ounces of gasoline in it, light it, and pour fire directly into the open intake while cranking the engine.

Extremely dangerous, not the done thing these days I am sure, but it worked, particularly on very large gasoline and diesel engines. Definitely worked better the older the engine was. We worked on cars trucks and tractors from the 1920's to the 1980's in the family shop.

Nowadays you would be challenged on most cars and trucks to find a vertical intake hole of any kind to pour the fire into.

We got many calls for "engine won't start" on such days, on locally used cars, mostly 1960's-1970's US made ones. Dad had rigged an extra long set of heater supply and return hoses into the 327 Chev V-8 in our service truck. He arranged end-of-hose valves and couplers so that on such calls he would disconnect the heater hoses from the car's engine block and connect in the long ones from the service truck's running engine. 5 minutes of hot circulating coolant and 9 out of 10 engines would start just fine. Another 5 minutes to disconnect hoses / fix car's coolant level , return to the garage where the phone was ringing off the wall, and then send a bill for $25 whole dollars. Without the hot coolant many cars just would not start at say -30 deg C regardless of what you tried or for how long.

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 16/02/2021 20:09:29

[John PParticipant @johnp77052]

Hi
Seeing Howard's post about the flaming rag ,at Worthing
depot it was common thing during the cold weather to
use a paraffin rag on a bent piece of welding wire
on Mk1 Leyland National buses ,the manifold heaters
were a heater coil that had a fuel supply that were a
common problem with fires and were mostly disconnected
hence the burning rag ,with the layout of these vehicles
the usual procedure was to drop out the air filter stuff up
the rag crank over and off you go ,one day i was on a late turn
and the lad who was on the morning shift tried it and left the
air filter element in place ,set fire to the air filter which spread
to the rest of the bus ,when i came in later in the day all that
was left was the burnt out carcass , happy day's.

John

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

in late 70s took a holiday in Soviet Russia as was my wont in early January – that year a coach trip for a week visiting the historic monastery towns around Moscow – it was about -25 that year so the coach had a fire lit under the two diesel engines (1 power, 1 to provide heating etc on the coach) each night – started 1st thing each morning

Edited By Frances IoM on 16/02/2021 20:17:01

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

The driver obviously thought he wasn't making enough smoke, so nipped off for a Woodbine!

[David CauntParticipant @davidcaunt67674]

Our bus at the gliding club required the ether trick otherwise it was a flatten the batteries job.

My Dad who was in the REME's during the war said they had to keep a lamp under the truck engines during the cold nights to cure the starting problem.

From a car point of view my Mk2 Consol gave the battery a real canning until I fitted an electric pump instead of the mechanical one. Then turn on ignition wait for the pump to stop and then turn the key to start and off it went.

[Tim HammondParticipant @timhammond72264]

We never liked using EasyStart on reluctant engines, because once you did, they became 'addicted' to it and wouldn't ever start without it. If I could gain access to the air intake fairly easily, my weapon of choice was a small blowtorch to start a sulky engine.

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