Reply To: Starting Problem 1952 11BL

[ChrisParticipant]

Holts Cold Start is the same kind of thing as Start ya Bastard. Halfords sell it. There are other brands. You just spay it into the air filter – or into the carb itself. We have a couple of cars that like it if they’ve not been used for a while and their float chambers have dried out.

If you want to get fresh fuel into your carb without emptying the tank, you have a couple of options:

1. One is to disconnect the pipe from the inlet to the fuel pump and have the pump suck from a petrol can with fresh stuff in it. You’ll need a couple of feet or so of flexible fuel pipe. Having the can off the ground will help the pump prime. If it starts you can run the engine like this while you check timing and so on – but you can’t drive anywhere !
2. The other is to just fill the float chamber with fresh fuel. You can do this by pouring fresh petrol into the float chamber through the rubber tube from the pump. Disconnect the tube at the pump outlet and use a small funnel to fill with fresh petrol. The funnel will need to be higher than the carb. This will only make a difference if the float chamber is already empty though. If it is already full no new fuel will be admitted. You can run the engine like this too, if you can find some way to hang the pipe and refill it.

Chris