Early Risers.

[Horsetan]

....until I was able to start the car. I don't remember how many times I turned the key, I wasn't counting but had I been, I might have run out of fingers and needed some toes. It did spring to life eventually.

 

Hopefully the car has one more start left in it to get to the repair place first thing in the morning. As reliable as modern cars are, it is all the more frustrating when they don't start. The worst vehicle I ever owned had multiple serious design flaws, the worst of them being it's Le Rhône starter. I got quite adept at push starting it, but even those tricks don't help my current situation.

I have an independent starter on the CX. Why is it independent? 'cos it starts when it wants to.

[AndyID]

Park it facing downhill and then bump start it.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

This is America. Cars don't have clutches here

 

Though I do miss my '55 VW. It had so little compression I could bump start it from walking pace.

[newbryford]

This is America. Cars don't have clutches here

 

Oz's does according to his post

 

Cheers

Mick

[AndyID]

the worst of them being it's Le Rhône starter.

 

It could hardly have been worse than a Lucas with a Bendix gear.

[AndyID]

Oz's does according to his post

 

Cheers

Mick

 

Well, that's 'is problem then, init?

 

(Teach me for not reading his post )

[AndyID]

A fellow Scot bought a 'vette when we were in Arizona. No, not a Corvette, a Chevette. It only took us a couple of hours to determine that you had to depress the clutch to get the starter to work

[Tony_S]

I had a loan car once thst had to have the clutch depressed to stsrt it. It was a Hyundai, an i30 I think. I used to depress the clutch usually when starting a manual car anyway.

[newbryford]

A fellow Scot bought a 'vette when we were in Arizona. No, not a Corvette, a Chevette. It only took us a couple of hours to determine that you had to depress the clutch to get the starter to work

 

We had Toyotas as the sponsored fleet vehicles at the World shortcourse swimming champs in Manchester in 2002

Various petrol engined models were provided as well as the relatively new fangled Prius.   (Horrible things IMO)

Four of us spent half an hour trying to find out why it wouldn't go until we eventually found the electric parking brake switch.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Tony_S]

A fellow Scot bought a 'vette when we were in Arizona. No, not a Corvette, a Chevette. It only took us a couple of hours to determine that you had to depress the clutch to get the starter to work

Probably not the UK model Chevette. That was our first car, it had the same engine as a Vauxhall Viva and dubious electrics. It wasn't necessary to depress the clutch to start ours. The clutch cable did detach a couple of times though. We replaced it with a Ford Escort which was a much more sophisticated vehicle.

[Barry O]

Night all!

Edited March 18, 2018 by Barry O

[PhilJ W]

Probably not the UK model Chevette. That was our first car, it had the same engine as a Vauxhall Viva and dubious electrics. It wasn't necessary to depress the clutch to start ours. The clutch cable did detach a couple of times though. We replaced it with a Ford Escort which was a much more sophisticated vehicle.

The American Chevette was the same size as the Cavalier. I rented one when I went to the States many years ago. Even back then (40 years ago) the rental companies did not have cars with manual gearboxes. I wondered why I couldn't start it until I realised it was in drive rather than neutral or park. It also had air conditioning but that increased the fuel consumption somewhat.

[BSW01]

Evening everyone

 

It’s been a funny old day today, dull and the occasional snow flurry, but nothing that has stuck. I’ve not been outside at all today, in fact, the outside cellar door hasn’t been unlocked at all today, neither have both the front and doors since last night when we went to bed. But I did open the blinds in the cellar to let a bit more light in.

 

No for the good news, despite all the wind and snow, our boiler has not failed since I fitted the trace heat cable and lagged the condensate pipe. I don’t know whether it hasn’t been cold enough, (but it sure looks cold enough from inside) or the modifications have done the trick. Either way, we are both warmer than when the last beast from the east blew in!

 

I managed to get 4 coats of varnish on all of those (8) knobs! So tomorrow after I’ve made a curry sauce I’ll put them back on the doors and drawers and then refit the whole lot back onto the furniture in the attic.

 

Continued thanks to John for all the updates on Deb’s, she’s one remarkable lady, despite all that the world has thrown at her.

 

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

Park it facing downhill and then bump start it.

It is presently in the garage. I do have a convenient hill in the street and actually could push out down the driveway. I've push/bump started most of my manual cars at one time or another. I've never tried doing this on the current car. I presume the wonky safety switch is only material when the ignition switch is positioned to 'start'.

 

Oz's does according to his post

Yes, it does have a clutch. EDIT: It's about 14 years old. You have to work at finding cars with a manual transmission in the US these days.

 

It could hardly have been worse than a Lucas with a Bendix gear.

Possibly.It would give the "Prince of Darkness" a run for his money. This car was pretty bad mechanically.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[The Stationmaster]

Well as the last lot of snow had cleared off the roads and the roads were starting to dry out it had to happen - by 17.00 it was snowing again.   About an inch+ or so of the stuff where it settled on top of old snow but it took longer to get settling on paths etc so not so 'deep' (???) there.  But now it is freezing but at leaqst it has stopped falling.  And yet again the path across the lawn has remained fairly clear 

 

 

 

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[Ozexpatriate]

I had a loan car once thst had to have the clutch depressed to stsrt it. It was a Hyundai, an i30 I think. I used to depress the clutch usually when starting a manual car anyway.

Many years ago (long before mobile 'phones) I saw a colleague's spouse looking anxious in her husband's car outside our office. It turned out her husband had given her the keys and she couldn't figure out how to start his car. The culprit was the safety switch on the clutch. She didn't regularly drive a manual car and wasn't in the habit of depressing the clutch while starting the car.

 

Generally it is a useful safety feature. In roughly the same time period, a different colleague had his Sunday morning lie in interrupted by a vehicle, piloted by his teenaged daughter, entering the bedroom through a wall shared with the garage. According to his story, the daughter had started the car in gear and the starter motor was strong enough to propel the vehicle through the wall. This colleague's other teenaged daughter would subsequently take down the garage door by driving a vehicle into one side of the door frame.

[The Stationmaster]

Many years ago (long before mobile 'phones) I saw a colleague's spouse looking anxious in her husband's car outside our office. It turned out her husband had given her the keys and she couldn't figure out how to start his car. The culprit was the safety switch on the clutch. She didn't regularly drive a manual car and wasn't in the habit of depressing the clutch while starting the car.

 

Generally it is a useful safety feature. In roughly the same time period, a different colleague had his Sunday morning lie in interrupted by a vehicle, piloted by his teenaged daughter, entering the bedroom through a wall shared with the garage. According to his story, the daughter had started the car in gear and the starter motor was strong enough to propel the vehicle through the wall. This colleague's other teenaged daughter would subsequently take down the garage door by driving a vehicle into one side of the door frame.

 

Compared with that I should imagine he was quite happy to pay the costs of getting them married   

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

Compared with that I should imagine he was quite happy to pay the costs of getting them married   

He was pretty happy to have them out of the house living independent lives.

 

Having said that, most of my contemporaries with Gen-X or Millennial boys have stories about them having car accidents while under 25. Fortunately most of these stories don't involve serious injury. Between my son and his older brother they have about four 'incidents' involving substantial bending of metal - some of which are entertaining* but do nothing helpful for insurance premiums. Girls appear to be usually better (or at least more conscientious) drivers at this age.

 

* Given that no injuries were sustained and many of them involved collisions with stationary objects - kerbs, community mailboxes, parked cars, etc.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[newbryford]

 And yet again the path across the lawn has remained fairly clear 

 

DSCF0155rd.jpg

 

Showing off with underfloor heating on your garden path........?

 

Mick

[newbryford]

 

 

Generally it is a useful safety feature. In roughly the same time period, a different colleague had his Sunday morning lie in interrupted by a vehicle, piloted by his teenaged daughter, entering the bedroom through a wall shared with the garage. According to his story, the daughter had started the car in gear and the starter motor was strong enough to propel the vehicle through the wall. 

 

My wife proudly announced that she had reversed the car out of the garage the other day.

Problem is, I'd reversed it in.....

 

 

Coat/hat/etc.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Horsetan]

... This car was pretty bad mechanically.

Ooh, a Renault 11. Haven't seen one of those since the early 1990s. We never had the convertible over here, but the regular 9 saloon and 11 hatchback sold moderately well. Our next-door neighbours back then had a nearly-new 9 and used to give me a lift to the station in the mornings.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[Ozexpatriate]

Ooh, a Renault 11. Haven't seen one of those since the early 1990s. 

There's a good reason you haven't seen one since the early 1990s. I bought a second hand AMC-built Renault Alliance DL in 1986 - four cylinder, four door, with a five-speed manual transmission. When it worked, it was a fun car to drive.

 

I had no end of problems with the starting system. It also could not hold 5^th gear. While driving at highway speeds it would drop into neutral without warning. It also had a (one time) throttle problem where it couldn't hold idle without stalling. Driving it to get this fixed was really tricky - you had to keep the revs up cornering - so some 'backwards' application of clutch and throttle were required to not stall. It kept me poor while I owned it and I bought a new car in 1988 which I then kept until it was rear-ended about ten years later.

[AndyID]

When we lived in AZ we were rudely awoken early one Sunday morning by a great crash followed by a resounding "boinginging" when the neighbor lady across the street failed to stop in her driveway and took out one side of the double garage door. The boing was the sound of the I-beam landing on the concrete driveway. We suspect she was plastered.

 

It was common for the houses in Mesa to have alleyways running behind the houses. Bin lorries used them to pick up the trash and they often had big gates so you could put your RV in the back yard (not that we had one then.) The local yoot had a habit of entertaining themselves by racing their cars around the alleys at night. One morning our HR director found a car in his swimming pool.