Starting a car without a battery:

[The Natural Philosopher]

yup.

A bloke I worked with used to have to retard the ignition on his (ford based) lotus to get it to start at all.

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

I seem to remember someone had a "timing light" on it but as to whether it was -that- far out can't say!...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Even so; how likely is it the 'someone' knew enough to verify the accuracy of the markings? A simple enough thing to do, but amazing how many mechanics, even those in possession of a timing light wouldn't know how. Even simpler back then.

[tony sayer]

In article , Grimly Curmudgeon scribeth thus

Oddly enough this one worked with my dad in the RAF, he was on Spitfire's and Hurricane engines and dad was an armourour.

Supposed he knew what he was doing, but as men of that time there all dead now:(..

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That wouldn't necessarily help. The problem is the pointer to the mark used to set the timing was sometimes miles out. The only way was to check the actual piston TDC position, and re-set the marker correctly. Although a skilled mechanic could set the timing reasonably well on a road test.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

It's too easy to take the accuracy of the factory marks for granted - and even if the ignition marks are kind of right, that's no guarantee of anything else, like cam timing, distributor drive and the cam in that, points quality, oh, loads of other things. It wasn't all that rare to get a total bastard engine that had all the Friday aft/Monday morn parts in it and the only way to sort it was to go through the whole damn thing step by step. Even without a total strip, enough could be brought back into alignment to radically improve matters. Still, those days are thankfully long gone and QC really has worked over the years.

[tony sayer]

In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus

Just how did they manage that?..

Indeed I don't think running was that much of an issue at all, it was just that "cold starting" was the real problem...

[bert]

In message , tony sayer writes

I had a 105E, started first time every time - but when I got 100yards down the hill to the junction no matter what I id with the choke it would stall. Restarted first time and was then perfectly OK including when I stopped at the newsagents about 200 yards away.

[bert]

The old Marshall single cylinder tractor was started with a cartridge.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , bert writes

Or possibly a bit of burning corrugated cardboard fitted to a screw in probe. My wife's long dead uncle used to sell them.

Big advance from the steam engine that used to pull and drive the threshing drum as the Marshall tractor that came here was fitted with a winch and could tug it to otherwise inaccessible places.