I wonder why people say no ether? On what basis, besides its been used as a starting assist for 100 years including V12 aero engines. Rolls Royce Merlin knows more than I do.
What follows is not related to long crank, more no start or hard start , follows:
A ram engine can be very easily flooded, even by pros . Pump it on a ram ,after catch and stall , you are done for.
I remember a nice guy came to meet in Maine, 100 point F convert, a beautiful trailer, all of the club pros were there, could not start that car for move to concours , after initial catch and stall; . I advised go away for 30 minutes , stop jiggling throttle or playing with chokes. Leave it alone it ran fine --it will start. It did, later . Gasoline due to flooding wets the plugs ---you gotta pretty big problem. No amount of cajoling from outside will make a soaked plug fire.... especially one with a few miles on it, as the normal coating on the insulator gets soaked , and conductive , shorts the spark. You know, as you will occasionally , even repetitively , hear one or two cylinders fire. To fix that, when racing hemis , in the way back, tuning carbs etc I had a neon sign transformer , grounded case of transformer to car, hooked one half (one of two wires) to plug, dried it , car fired up .Easy on a hemi ---swap a long (ceramic! from 331) plug terminal from transformer with the ignition one ,10 sec steady arc at plug dried it (don't try this yourself, you can kill yourself, 5 kv at 10 mA ) .
Note that another way IS a long crank, carb and choke wide open ,do not jiggle. air will dry off plug or speed drying.
But, ether evaporates , does not wet plugs, just sayin. Gone in 30 sec , cannot flood engine YMMV , but facts about ether don't....
PS, no one mentioned stuck heat riser valves cooking the carbs while driving , and ruining choke action .
Worn idle needles, with a ring of wear around tip are another issue, (results from many "golden screwdrivers "1000 times over 65 years, )you cannot set mixture right with that common issue, needle valve will go all on all off in 1/4 turn--cannot be adjusted -- you will note turning needle seems to do nothing, or is erratic ; replacement AFB needles today from edelbrock will fix that, different taper, they will seat in a new place, smooth adjustment, you see it on the vacuum gauge you always use setting mixture, right? . With wrong or unbalanced idle mixture it might catch, almost start ,but not stay running. The road to floodsville .
Last and very common, the idle check valve right under the squirters gets corrosion while sitting and sticks shut, you get no gas out. seems obvious to check for squirt but this has caught me. you see /smell gas at the carb, makes you think all is ok--- All the pump piston seal / spring, washers etc replaced will not fix that .... But once it catches by putting a small amount of gas in--or, horrors-ether ) it will run ok with no squirters....just wont start.
We love em anyway...
JKG
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network
Archive Sitemap