Starting a car without a battery:

[Steve Firth]

No, many of them had electric pumps, even relatively old cars had electric pumps.

You think that all of the fuel in the float chamber evaporates overnight?

If you run the float chamber dry on a car with a carburettor it takes a lot of cranking to start the engine. What remains in the carburettor enables a relatively easy start.

Yes, I think you may be thinking along rails.

So you reckon that starter cartridges didn't work them?

Note that I pointed out that you need to get a fuel-air mix into the cylinder and to close exhaust and inlet valves to get it to work. It's not beyond the wit of man to do that mechanically or with simple electrical systems. On a diesel engine (working in the other direction) there are decompressors to allow easy starting. When the engine starts to turn over the decrompressor disengages. The same mechanical mechanism could be used to close the inlet and outlet valves instead of keeping them open and then revert to cam operation when the engine starts to turn over. Fuel/air could be injected using a mechanical pump and that (mechanical) system has been available for a long time.

[Theo Markettos]

But we were talking about an engine that's cold and not turning over. You either need a starter motor/handle to make it turn over, or ignite some fuel/air mixture to make it go. But this mixture doesn't just appear in the cylinders - either you use EFI, or you need the effect of the engine turning over to draw it in. So I can't see how you can make an unmodified carburetted engine to fire without it already turning over.

Theo

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Not exactly a secret, but unreliable as f*ck. Get a piston just over compression with a fuel charge in the chamber and fire the plug using a torch battery spark pack [1] - the engine will cough and run - if the wind's right, the horse you backed wins and the fairies don't shit on you.

[1] Back then, that was essentially a diy device that was more or less a one-lead contact breaker.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

As I said, some older Rolls Royce were known for starting without the use of the starter motor. Think Silver Ghost. Obviously, carburettor. They had mechanical control over the ignition timing via a lever on the steering column. Switch on, waggle the lever which caused the points to open and therefore a spark (coil ignition), and off it went - igniting the fuel left in the cylinder from last time the engine was run. Even, I'm told, years later. ;-)

The design of those early engines may have been a deciding factor - long stroke, low compression, heavy flywheel and 6 cylinders. Doesn't mean the same trick would work with every engine.

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

SU, did that really mean "Skinners Union" as I was told when a lad?...

[Adrian]

Where would we be without Wikipedia, eh?

[tony sayer]

Yess .. In fact just as I hit the send key;-!...

[jgh]

Yes, and my thumb still hurts twenty years later....

JGH

[Andrew Gabriel]

Ah, you never wrap your thumb around the starting handle - goes over the same side of the handle as your fingers do...

Yes, Citroens had a wheel-nut spanner which doubled up as a starting handle well into the 1970s, and I used it to start a couple of dad's Citroens several times.

[Vir Campestris]

"SU Carburettor From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from SU carburetor)"

They aren't American :)

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thats why you took the plugs put and cranked it on full; choke for a bit before putting the plugs back in

Or simply filled the float chamber or dribbled some neat fuel in the air intake

[The Natural Philosopher]

|I do it on the ride on lawnmower too.

[RayL12]

Back in the early 60's, our next door neighbour was one of the very few cars seen on the estate.

His 'effing and blinding' on early winter mornings was far superior to the alarm clock.

[Alan Braggins]

How old is "older"? My 1976 Renault 6 had an electric pump.

[RobertL]

and you only need to energise teh field windings until the engine is actually running. Then the field windings are powered from the output of the alternator (and the little red 'ignition' light goes out as a result).

Robert

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Pretty well all post WW2 Nuffield products (Morris, MG etc) used electric pumps. And quite a few pre WW2. As did Rolls Royce and Jaguar.

[Adrian]

Meanwhile, petrol/carb'd VW transporters were using engine-driven mechanical pumps into the '90s, and the launch of the T4 coinciding with the UK requirement for cats/injection.

[tony sayer]

;) LOL!, round our way there were more Fords than a little and they were all piss poor at starting especially my dads old Anglia that was a joke.

Several garages tried but that thing never started easily.

In fact in cold weather when he came home from work he'd take the plugs out and put them on the hot plate in the morning, and then we'd get them back into the car and that did help plus the spare battery to assist the one on the car..

[charles]

I assume this was the old "sit up and beg" one. My 105E and later 123E had no starting problems that I remember. I doubt if I'd have gone on to buy a Cortina Mk 3 if teh Anglia had misbehaved.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I can only remember a handful of cars with mechanicals. One being a Vauxhall Viva.

I think electric pumps stated in the 60's, and were pretty much ubiquitous by the 70s. They did of course offer a huge advantage: you didn't need to crank the engine to get fuel into the carbs. THAT was a huge improvement in starting.