----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----
Tim: It sounds to me like you're in need of a primer. The primer has the advantage that if you have certain other problems, pumping the primer may feed the engine long enough for you to get home. Also, pumping away at the throttle can't be good for things. However, at anything well below freezing, you should be pre-heating. Turning the engine over by hand doesn't 'loosen things up' where it counts. The bearings are cold, and the clearances are such that, started below 20 degrees, you're putting many hours of wear on your engine with every start. The bearing technology isn't designed for it. There was a good article on AvWeb.com about that a while back. It's certainly still there. Add that to the wear on the starter with long cranking, and a pre-heat is cheap at the price. The pre-heat is apt to solve the other cold-start issues as well. The puddle of fuel you talk about it is very telling...it suggest that you probably were flooding the engine part of the time in your attempts. And yes, a back-fire could start a fire. And cranky engines back-fire. By the way, a primer can do the same thing...make a puddle. I've gotten in the habit of trying to start without a prime (works most of the time). Failing that, I pull the primer out and let it fill (it's kind of a big primer), and push it in slowly while the engine is cranking. That way, it lights off when it's first ready and I like to think that the fuel coming out of the primer is going into the engine, not out the carburetor and onto the ground. A lot of POH's want you to give a couple of shots of primer prior to cranking, but that gives me the willies, splashing fuel around. Regarding the stumble, it sounds like the cylinders and manifolds never did get warm enough to prevent odd things from happening to the fuel on the way through. Do you have a winterization kit? And again, the pre-heat, to get everything under the cowl up to at least the 40's or even 60's Farenheit would probably have made a world of difference! Greg ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
<<attachment: winmail.dat>>
