Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/02/how-to-crank-start-an-antique-car.html
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Deader than Willie Nelson’s smoke detector
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- Make damn sure that it’s in neutral!
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For even more entertainment: How to Safely Hand Prop an Airplane. The first (and one of the few times) I did this, I was a high school student convinced of my own immortality. My instructor was a veteran 60+ year old pilot who carefully talked me through the process. It wasn’t until after the engine started that I noted he was missing all of the finger tips on his left hand.
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I have done it more than once. My dad involved several of us in his antique car restoration hobby and I was the one most connected with the 1930 Model A - especially during its disassembly and documentation.
When the engine was completely rebuilt and re-assembled, it was considerably tighter than when we first got ahold of the car. That means it deserved a few cranks by hand before we engaged the electric starter.
We also spent some time on the road and at shows with the Model A club, looking under hoods and fixing things.
The brown tudor sedan is my Dad’s (well, it was until he sold it recently).
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I inherited a Wolseley 1500 from my grandmother and drive it around in the 1980s.
It had a hand crank for if the battery died, which happened on a couple of occasions. It was a great little car. By modern standards it was a joke but I really liked it.
Interestingly, a lot of the parts are in common with MGs of the same era.
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I’ll stick with my emergency lithium starter.
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The Ford Model A uses a 6 Volt battery with a positive ground. It’s a bit different from modern cars.
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2CVs also had a crank start
The main problem is if the battery is dead, you’re hooped. Without current from the battery to energize the magnetic coils in the alternator, it’s not going to produce anything. The old cars had generators with permanent magnets that would work with a flat battery.
The change to alternators probably saved automakers some money back in the day, but I wonder if anyone has run the numbers recently? Price of copper coils vs cheap magnets.
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the mum had a '57 MGA when i was a kid. that car had a hand crank, too.
we also had an old Farmall tractor that was hand cranked. in was a 1940s vintage, i believe.
grandaddy was into restorations and had a beautiful Model T truck. yup, hand crank start. he said you could set the gap for the points with a dime. then he would say “i didn’t have a dime, so i used two nickels”.
yeah, i’ve hand cranked a few motors in my youth.
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That’s very cool. I’d love to try it. One of my favorite scenes in “East of Eden” is when the same procedure is explained.
Me neither, but I have done outboards, lawnmowers, chainsaws and a Cox 049.
Came close to trying with a marine diesel with a dead battery until I remembered this one neat trick: Flick off the compression levers so there is literally no compression; Even a dead battery will sping the crank; then flick one lever on and the momentum may fire up one cylinder; then flick on the other levers once you get a thump thump thump.
When I was an assistant coach at a local rowing club, I got a real knack for pull-starting outboards in the winter. You get a kind of intuition for individual motors and how they like to be got going.
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