How to start a car without starter. Is it possible to do?

gen ( snipped-for-privacy@qwest.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

No "probably" about it. Yes.

Or roll it down a hill. Either way, you put it in second gear, get a bit of speed up, and release the clutch.

Works fine with new cars too...

But not with *any* car with an autobox.

Because it's got an autobox.

You have no option but to use the starter.

Or dump the car and buy one with a manual box.

Some automatics can be started by towing at quite a high speed (35 mph or so) but I have never tried it. I do not know whether your vehicle would start with a high speed tow.

Why not just get the starter fixed and fit it in situ?

mrcheerful

It's nothing to do with the age - the fact that it's an auto box means that in order to get the torque convertor to turn the engine over you need to be doing quite a high speed. This is true of both old cars and new cars (as long as they have a torque convertor). Push starting autos has never been an option.

I'm afraid you're all wrong.;-)

To engage drive in an auto requires hydraulic pressure - that's the way the various clutches work. And on pretty well all autos, the pump which produces that pressure is engine driven - so no engine, no drive. However, many early autos had *two* pumps - one driven by the engine, one by the propshaft, so you could bump start those.

The advice was to push start them with another car - tow them and there's a good chance it would run into the back of the tow car when it started. You'll sometimes see this in old American films.

The last UK car I know for certain that you could push start was the P6 Rover 2000 with the BW 35 transmission. But not the 3500 with nominally the same unit - they removed the rear pump to allow room for beefier gears to handle the greater torque.

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Not quite true.

The reason most auto boxes won't let you start the engine is that their oil pumps are on the input shaft - which ain't turning. Until you can get the input shaft to turn, which unless you've taken it all apart means starting the engine you can't get enough oil pressure to get the clutches to engage and connect the wheels to the engine. This is also why you shouldn't tow an auto far or fast - there's no oil flow to protect it.

However - a very few auto boxes have pumps on both the input shaft and the output shaft - which means that you can raise enough oil pressure to get the gearbox to drive the engine and thus start it.

I've seen a few people trying to push start a car with an almost flat battery, they do it like this:

Get a friend or two pushing the car, then when it's got up to speed, turn the key..... and keep turning it...

The message from "Mark W" contains these words:

I've lost count of how many times I've seen that.

Almost as bad is people giving jumpstarts how connect the leads then rev the nuts off the donor engine for ten minutes.

Heh. Presumably whilst still in neutral?

I had to explain to a woman (sorry women, but it was) how to bump start her car recently. "Into 2nd gear...I'll push the car...when I say "NOW" lift the clutch, ok?" "Ok" I go behind the car to push and notice there's no lights on the dash. Back to her. "Oh, does it need to be switched on? "Yes" Whirr click. "No, just to the second pos..." Whirrrr clickclickclick "I'll do it" Back behind the car, heeeeeave. Back round to her..."You have to take the handbrake off" "Oh, ok then" Back round, heeeeeeeave....brake lights are on. "And the footbrake" "Oh, ok" "Heeeeeeeeave...NOW!!" Nothing. "NOW!!!!!" "Eh?" "NOW!!!!!!!!" "Oh, ok"

Si

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I've been on the pushing side of that once. Just once...

Not "revving the nuts", but a few revs will certainly help - most charging circuits don't put much above 12.5v out until a few revs are on, with full

14.5v not until about 1500rpm or so.

You need those couple of extra volts to get past the drop in the cables.

In addition, leaving 'em connected and enough revs on for a few minutes can certainly help if the battery on the jumpee is *very* flat, especially if there's electronics in the ignition/fuel on the jumpee.

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Exactly - but you see people with their pedal to the metal with the poor engine screaming in torment.

You must have some very thin jumpleads if you get a couple of volts drop in them. Even when the victim's cranking I'd not expect that sort of drop - certainly not in my thick-as-your-finger leads. Certainly I rarely attempt to start a car down the jump leads anyway - just leave 'em connected for few minutes on a fast idle and the recipient's battery is warmed up and lively enough to do the job largely on its own.

Been there, done that, except in my case it was a bloke.

Explained how to start it, set it all up for him, in gear, ign on etc, told him I would shout when he was to take his foot of the clutch.

Started pushing, got speed up shouted 'foot off'. Nothing......... Shouted again, 'foot off'. Still nothing...... Getting pretty tired by now. Shouted again, very loudly, 'FOOT OFF' Still nothing. Except for the fact that the car park suddenly became eerily silent, as every other person there turned to stare at me...... Wondering why there was a madman pushing a car around the car park, telling the driver to f*** off!

SimonJ wrote on Mon, 28 Jun 2004 20:33:12 +0000 (UTC):

[snip]

I had a few people looking oddly at me when I push started my own car after leaving the lights on at the uni car park (the door open sensor on the drivers door stopped working, so the interior light didn't come on... and the you-left-your-lights-on-you-moron buzzer didn't work)...

The main problem was getting it out of the parking space (slightly up hill), before giving it a bit of a shove down hill, and attempting not to get run over whilst climbing in to my own moving car). Probably not very safe, but it worked..

And of course, not one of the people looking oddly at me shoving a Fiesta (thank god) up a slight incline bothered to ask if I needed any help... Oh well..

16mm2 jump lead drops 1mV per Amp per metre, so your lead drops going to be 0.5V-1V but the spring clamps tend to be crap so you can easily lose a couple of volts by the time you've got to the starter.

I know that, you know that but that's the biggest ones they tend to sell, the cheap ones are 2.5mm3 to 4mm2. & for starting cars once you go over

35mm2 the clips are all that really matters. Landrovers are another story :-(

as everyone else here has said, you need to be going at some speed to get it to start (30 mph is the minimum needed to bump start a bus, but that's easy because we used to push the broken one with another one, and as long as your run up was great enough, it wasn't a problem :) )

The message from DuncanWood contains these words:

But 16mm² is tiddly!

I had to start a dead car on Friday (collecting a car from docks, it was 4pm and the docker was standing there tutting!) Not sure how much was in the battery but some £15 finger-thick jumpleads turned over a

3.8 Chevy V6 from an Audi A3.

Gareth

It depends how flat the battery is. It might well be able to supply most of the current needed, with the donor just topping it up.

If the battery is pretty flat, and you only have thin leads, use the donor car to charge the battery for a while.

Gareth A. ( snipped-for-privacy@nospamplease-attrill.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

"Jump box" - every home (that mucks about with cars) should have one.

I was dubious about their value before buying one at the Ally Pally classic car show - it's a fairly cheesy one, only cost me £20 - but I'm sold - when this one dies, I'll be investing in a better one, fersure.

Just clip it onto the battery, get in, start. No problems. Even my crappy one's started cars with batteries so flat the oil light won't even come on.