jay leno's garage

He has a wonderful collection. He also commentates frequently at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, and a very good job he does. The Doble and Stanley Steam cars were featured at one of the Concours that I went to, and when on the road, a Stanley was really fast.

One of Jay's projects was to take an Oldsmobile Toronado and stuff a

1,000 hp engine into it. A great Car Guy.

It's nice to watch his passion and inquisitive mind. Some of the old cars he drive are really weird, but then he's thrilled that they can move at all. Great stuff.

BTW the first car my dad bought was a Renault 4CV. Not only did it come with manual and tool set, but also with package of basic spare parts. Them days...

Quite. I also wonder how many cars there are still on the road that came wi th a starting handle. I think R4's had one. A lada I had did. More recentl y my mate managed to start his LR 101 with one in low range first - lucky i t was on full lock and against an 18 inch curb.

Two-thirds of my fleet...

I once bought an MG 1300 as a spare car while I did some work on my main one. Paid £10 for it which even in 1975 wasn't a lot of money for a car with a long MOT but the owner was exasperated with it. Either the charging or the battery was faulty but as we lived on a hill just started it by rolling away and doing a bump start. On occasions where someone had parked too close to allow that it started quite easily by jacking up a front wheel and with the car in gear wound on a wheel nut with a speed brace and socket . Tolerable for the 10 days or so I used it just to travel to and from work. Now with modern safety features such as having to depress the clutch or have the car in neutral it would not be so easy.

G.Harman

I would not recommend starting using a wheelbrace, use your hands to turn the wheel by all means (still not easy and may cause injuries), but a wheelbrace? Asking for a flying lump of metal in the face if it starts and you don't manage to pull the wheelbrace away in time. A ratchet on the hubnut would be far safer and would not be off center.

+1. I still get the shivers seeing any film of someone starting an aero engine by pulling on the prop!

On Thu, 07 May 2015 11:34:44 +0100, Mrcheerful

As I said above I used a speed brace and socket which were from my socket set. Much lighter than a wheel brace especially one of those four armed things and not as awkward as the almost L shaped and often useless bit of metal that used to come with the spare wheel.

One like this

Using it wasn't that much different than a conventional starting handle except you were a bit off center and there was no arrangement whose name escapes me for when the engine fired not to take the crank handle with it, you still had the risk if an engine kick back though even with those so treated them with caution. Using the socket set tool wasn't that riskier , it came of the wheel nut easy enough. Besides I was invulnerable at 18. The same MG had a dicky fuel pump so for the duration I connected the washer bottle to the carbs filled it with petrol and manual pumped it every so often. It was only five miles to work and the washer bottle held enough.

G.Harman

came with a starting handle. I think R4's had one. A lada I had did. More recently my mate managed to start his LR 101 with one in low range first - lucky it was on full lock and against an 18 inch curb.

The Renault 4CV did have a starting handle for emergency, it was really quite a natural fit for the rear engine. The first car was a second hand Renaul 4CV standard model, then he later bought a 'De Luxe' from new. The included spare parts package had gaskets, including head gasket! and some drive belts. It was really a thrill in them days, the smell, the noises and the chrome bits. The little car was nice to drive and felt sporty in spite of 21hp from 748cc 4 cyl.