Starting the car on a cold morning
This morning I went out to my garage, got into the driver’s seat of my car, inserted the “key thingy,” turned it clockwise, and just like that, the car started. That seems to happen quite regularly these days. I understand that all you have to do with some new cars is to get in, push a button and the motor starts.
I suppose it wouldn’t take too much to rig your car to start by sending a signal from your phone. I know that even 50 years ago there were car models that would start at a certain clock time. Back then, though, before computer controls to set up the fuel mixture for the temperature and so on, those automatic starters might run your battery down trying to start when things weren’t quite right.
They don’t make cars the way they used to. I’m supposing for the most part that we are glad of that. Yes, sometimes we long for the stronger bumpers of years ago, or for less plastic and less of other artificial materials in the cars, for more real metal, and so on. But, most cars these days start easily, last a long time, run troublefree for long distances, and require very little regular maintenance. All that says that they don’t make cars (or trucks) the way they used to.
I was born at the beginning of the 1940s. So, I don’t go back to the earliest cars, but I do go back to times when starting your car, especially on a cold, cold morning, was a careful, strategic process, often tailored to the temperament of your particular vehicle. My family in those early days of my life, were Chevy people. For the most part, the old Chevrolets would hit it off pretty readily, they just wouldn’t stay running on a cold morning without some nursing along. The Chevy pattern, if you didn’t take measures, was to start and die, start and die. Especially when you let out the clutch to take off, the engine would sputter and die.
I don’t know about the old Ford cars or trucks of the 1940s. We never had one for me to learn on. I did always hear that the Dodges and Plymouths were just plain hard to start, and that the starter might go “Ta-ah-ah-ahah” on and on before the motor finally fired and began trying to run. In the meantime, you might need to dry out the distributor, prime the motor by pouring a bit of gasoline down the carburetor throat, or spray some “Engine Start” into the intake.
If push came to shove, you gave the car a push with another car, bumper to bumper, or hooked on with a chain to be pulled, or got out the tractor to give the recalcitrant vehicle an authoritative pull. I’m sure that the advent of the electric starter was a real boon to the development of the automobile. That happened before my time. Some of the better cars were being equipped with electric starters in the era of 1910 and following. But for years after that, many of the lesser expensive cars were still requiring the operator to crank the engine manually to start.
The Model T Ford was an example. The T-models, even through the 1920s, usually would not have the electric starter, with its expensive battery, wiring harness, fan-belt-driven generator and so on. My Grandpa Clement was a Model T owner and driver, but he was never known to be a skilled operator. To start a Model T, you would make sure the transmission was in neutral, then you would set the spark level on the steering column to “retard” (or have someone do that for you), then you would get the crank out of the toolbox, go to the front of the car, insert the crank until it engaged with the slots on the front of the crankshaft, and start giving the motor a whirl until it fired up. To be continued.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, and a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The opinions expressed are those of the author. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.