How To Drive A Motorcar
A Key To The Subtleties Of Motoring

CHAPTER VI Difficulty in Starting Up ON occasion one goes to start up the car and finds her more contrarily dispositioned to perform her righteous and appointed work than any— well, any other “ she’s ” contrariness! The car’s conduct may appear equally unreasonable. It may be that the day before she was running perfectly, and yet now it is found that she absolutely refuses to start. Well, it is no use courting an apoplectic fit by continuing to grind the starting handle round and round. No! Pause, and consider. The treatment to be fol- lowed when endeavouring to start up the car under these circumstances varies with the conditions obtain- ing. If one is in a hurry to get away, then the main consideration is to get the engine started up and leave the work of locating the precise fault to a future time. Carburetter Faults In such cases, having previously, of course, tried flooding the carburetter and made quite sure that the switch is in the proper position, open the petcocks and, closing the eyes to guard them against any particles of dirt being thrown up, blow down each petcock, with the lips just a little removed from actual contact. The object of this is that, so far as carburation is concerned, the failure of the engine to start up may be due either to a mixture which is much too rich or to one which is too weak. If the cylinders are charged with too rich a mixture, this action will thin it out: allow the petcocks to remain open for, say, half a minute or so. By the end of this time it may be assumed that if the 40