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MG MGA - Crank start an MGA

There is a nice video on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-R5qGgFNzU

Is it really so easy to crank start an MGA?

Your progress reports are much appreciated, gentlemen!

Robert
Robert Mueller

Yes, but his technique is perilous.

You should always have all your fingers around one side of the grip, with your thumb lying alomgside your index finger. That way if the engine kicks back for any reason, the handle just flies out of your hand, without damage to you. If your thumb is in the way because you are using the grip in the video, it will just break your thumb.

To start, make sure the carbs are primed and float chambers are full. Appropriate level of choke, and then just swing and away it goes.

I did this for a few days when my starter burned out two weeks ago. It's much easier when the engine is warm, when cold it's hard work on the SUs, but easier on the Holley because it has an acceleration pump.
dominic clancy

The navicular bone is a small bone that resides near the base of the thumb, kind of like a spur bone. It is entirely possible to break that bone in half by improper hand cranking an MGA. In order to fix this break the navicular bone must be pinned with two stainless steel pins measuring about an inch and a quarter in length. The healing time is weeks upon weeks. Never, no not ever should you attempt to crank the motor over by cranking a full 360 degrees. Should the motor kick back, the above injury is likely. And just what makes me an expert? I'll never tell.
David Holmes

Double check to be sure the car is out of gear. Don't ask me how I learned this simple precaution.
Del Rawlins

I always pulled the engine through until about the 7 o'clock position, then gave it a quick pull up letting my hand fall free if needed. Don't hold on to the crank handle too firmly. It's more of a pull up, than a twist around.
Cleve

I am with Cleve. IF there is a back-kick, then the handle gets pulled from your hand rather than braking the thumb. One time, while slowly positioning to the 7 o'clock position it actually started by accident. Dell ia right. Make sure the car is out of gear and the emergency brake is on.

Another precaution, if you walk away from the front of the car with the handle in place but the car not running, don't then pull the starter switch!

Chuck

Chuck Schaefer

I know you all know this, but it is much safer to push start these cars with a clutch pop than it is to use the crank handle.

Even the slight incline in parking stall is enough to get it running.
T McCarthy

I did it for a whole year, so I can tell you it is dangerous! Something more important that breaking your hand, is knocking out your teeth, or breaking your mandible. Keep you chin out of the way!
It doesn’t take much, and like Chuck said, it might start at any time, even if you are moving it slowly. Making things quick and snappy, and getting out of the way is the best advice.
Cleve

Does anyone know why MGA put a crank starting capability into this car? I had a 1959 MGA in 1962 and I had to use the crank on cold days in Michigan to get it going. This worked best with someone inside pulling on the starter at the same time as I cranked. I knew how to do this (thumb on top) because I had grown up on a farm where we had to crank many old tractors. But it was very unique and old fashioned to have a crank on a car, even back in 1959.
HJ
Harley

Harley

Tradition?

T Series all had crank handles.

FWIW

Larry
Larry Hallanger

Harley

You have to remember that at the time in post war Britain we had massive war debts and incomes were low. Consequently, the vast majority of motorists had to make do with flat batteries, bald tyres and leaking radiators etc. Crank starting was very much a part of every daily life.

I remember our annual family holidays around the mid 1950s in our old 1930s ex-police Wolseley. It was a 68 mile journey from Cockfosters in North London to Eartham, near Arundel Castle in Sussex. The standard journey time was about 8 hours. This included the customary puncture and many radiator top ups enroute. Starting the engine each time was on the handle. I can remember swinging it, but the compression was so poor that there was little chance of a recoil. Not sure that I kept the thumbs out of the way either (I was about 10 years old at the time) and I never had a break.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Would not the correct procedure be to leave the ignition off until the final pull? Pull choke out, rotate engine to prime with fuel, position handle at 7 o'clock, turn ignition on, and pull hard?
James Johanski

Thanks for all your descriptions and advices!

But can the handle really kick back? I think the fitting piece for putting the crank handle in has this special shape for not being able to kick back? Didn't it work quite well?

@James: for providing fuel you have to turn the ignition on to let the electric fuel pump do it's job?

Robert
Robert Mueller

The shape alows it to come free when running forward. If the engine Kicks Back(wards) it can hurt you.
R J Brown

Yes, it can hurt you if done incorrectly. My right wrist was broken as a result of kick back and improper technique.
David Holmes

RJ,
I was laughing to myself at your explanation! It's designed to spin out after it starts, but just imagine the engine running in reverse! It would be like a high speed thrasher!

There was a tractor sold in Europe, up until the 1950's, called a Lanz Bulldog. It had an even more dangerous starter than the MG crank handle. The operator removed the steering wheel and mounted it to the crank takeoff. To start the engine, the operator would spin the steering wheel. To remove the steering wheel from a running engine, the operator would bump the steering wheel towards himself with open hands, so it would come off the shaft. More than one farmer lost a limb with this technique, and a few were killed by getting caught in the spinning wheel! (one tried standing on the wheel spokes on a cold morning)
Makes breaking a carpal bone seem insignificant!
Cleve

I definitely stand corrected. Ignition on, pull choke out, ignition off, rotate engine to prime with fuel, position handle at 7 o'clock, turn ignition on, and pull hard (using and open grip)????
James Johanski

The Lanz Bulldog in action

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7775200567316945952
John DeWolf

John,
Thanks for the great link. I haven't seen a Lanz since I was a child.
Notice in the video where Bob starts the Bulldog with the steering wheel, then later you see one of them re-attach it.

Also, the video in German shows the starting process for the hotbulb engine, which required heating the glowplug device before starting, with a petrol blowtorch. (and you thought starting an MG was an ordeal)

In the late 40s and 50s, you could hear the putt-putt-putt of the Bulldog engine all over the European countryside. Farmers left them on rather than turn them off, because they were not that easy to start.
Cleve

Cleve

Some engines (normally 2-strokes) are designed to run in reverse. I believe it is the German Isetta Bubble Car that has no reverse gear. Instead, you stop the engine, fire it up in reverse, then engage a gear as normal to reverse. Other than a well know country's (mythical) Main Battle Tanks in WW2, probably the only vehicle with a full range of reverse gears!

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve,
My neighbor had a Messerschmitt car about 35 years ago and he showed me how he could turn the key one way and start the Sachs engine going one direction, then turn it off and start it the other direction for reverse. I never rode with him, but it looked like fun!
I had a real car, an MG!!!
Cleve

WOW. I thought that the MGA was one of the last cars to sport a hand crank. My son just told me that his '77 Toyota FJ40 has one too. That is 15 years after the MGA.

I wonder what was the last car to have hand crank capability?

Chuck Schaefer

An English friend here (Aus) in the 60's bought a brand new Wolseley 24/80 (Farina body, 2.4ltr 6 cyl) which had the hole in the bumper for the crank, a crank in the boot, the whole bit. Flat battery one day, got out the crank handle, pushed it in and wondered why the water started pouring out. The radiator didn't allow for the crank, he had punched a hole in it... Another win for BMC! Traded that very quickly.
A Buick

I guess the starting handle started to fade out when front wheel drive cars became the norm, with engines turned 90 degrees in the engine compartment.

Steve
Steve Gyles

The Citroen 2CV had a starting handle. It was last made in 1990. Admittedly it was first made a long time before that - 1948!
Keith Morris

on this topic,, does someone out their happen to have an extra MGA starter crank laying around they could spare ???
gei, theirwins@alltel.net
gei irwin 1

gei,
I am also looking for one - I have the dimensions if you want to have a crack at making one (my brother in law has promised to make me one but he hasn't come good yet) - I will send by email.
Regards
Mike
Mike Ellsmore

Steve's right - crank starting was something you regularly did in the UK. I've had many old cars where cranking the handle was the norm and my 2CV has this facility. Seldom needed but useful in an emergency. The ease of use was fairly dependent on the engine being in good tune, kickback could also easily happen if the engine became flooded. Particularly on the earlier landrovers I recall. Luckily I knew the technique!

Spare a thought for the land army girls in the Second World War. Some of them were tractor drivers and of course tractors didn't have the luxury of electric starters back then. So a landgirl had to know how to swing her fordson tractor into life on a cold winters morning. One way to get warm I guess!
Brian Spencer

Great stories!
My Mum grew up in wartime England (In Horsham, very near Arundel) She described how, due to the poor wartime gas, the family would have to walk up steep hills while my Grandad backed the car up the hill, making use of the lower reverse gearing. Grandad apparently had 3 cars and a boat so that he could get enough gas coupons to keep one car running for his business.
My Aunt was a Land-Army girl. I will have to ask her how she made out with the tractors (Apparently she made out very well with the soldiers!)
BTW: The Daimler Scour car could go as fast in reverse as forward. R-R engined and all!

Cheers,
Rich
Rich McKIe

Wow, we are really getting off the MG track, but while we are there, after the war, my father drove a surplus Dodge Command Car, because of the shortage of transportation. It had no top and came with no doors. He bought it real cheap, and basically threw it away when he could afford a real car. I would like to have it now!
Cleve

Thanks for your great comments!
By the way there is an MGA crank handle on eBay now:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MGA-Hand-crank-for-starting-engine-1960-model_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ34202QQihZ017QQitemZ270144067966QQrdZ1

Robert
Robert Mueller

Robert says:

> There is a nice video on Youtube:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-R5qGgFNzU

OK, so is it just me, or does anyone else find that the video is sideways and there's no sound?

David Breneman

It was filmed in Ecuador...
Cleve

One other use for a crank handle is to move the car! I remember when I had a garage at the bottom of a slope it was quite useful in getting to the top when there was no engine or starter motor power. Just put the car in top gear and wind the crank. I used to do this with a car much heavier than the MGA at 3000lbs. Also for this car there was a manual ignition retard control on the dashboard which when pulled out reduced the chance of kick back when cranking to start the engine Mike
m.j. moore

David,

the video of course has sound so you can hear the engine running after the crank start. But even though the video is made in Germany (not in Ecuador!)the quality could be much better. At the beginning you see one copy of a german classic car magazin.

Maybe the video is a sort of motoring art ...

Robert
Robert Mueller

Mike's comment yesterday about using the crank handle as a way of moving a vehicle reminds me of that great British film 'Ice Cold in Alex'. Set in North Africa in the Second World War our heroes (British and a German) have to drive across the desert in 'Katie' an old Austin ambulance. Toward the end the only way over the huge dunes is to take out the sparking plugs and wind Katie up the hill. They almost reach the top and the three men leave the pretty nurse (Sylvia Syms) to hold the ambulance on the handle while they dash to the summit for a (premature) shout of celebration. She lets go of the crank, the ambulance runs back down the hill and they have to repeat the exercise!

I imagine today's generation would be somewhat bemused by these antics probably never having seen a starting handle being used. Certainly there's puzzlement about that hole in the middle of the front bumper.
Brian Spencer

This thread was discussed between 01/07/2007 and 14/07/2007

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