<VV> Re: push/bump starting

[djtcz at comcast.net]

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Subject: <VV> Re: No starts
Matt talks about push-starting one of his old cars... My first car, at age 17 in 1960, was a worn-out '49 Plymouth. Among the many lessons it taught me was don't buy a worn-out car, and don't be too cheap to buy a new battery when it's time. 

For about two weeks during the late spring of '62 the Plymouth's flat-head Six wouldn't turn over when I returned to it after a few hours. Oh yeah, I need to get a battery. But it's dead now, so... I got pretty good at pushing the car to a running pace, jumping in, shifting the three-on-a-tree to 2nd, turning on the key and letting out the clutch. It always fired up. 
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Hmmm....I learned to drive on my Mom's 49 Plymouth.  I'd appreciate that car at least 1000 % more today.

Around 1969 I accidentally manhandled the battery post loose on my 1963 Spyder. The car would run but not start.  Selective parking was the order of the day

The GMI parking garage had wide and constantly spiraling ramps, so it was easy to push it out of the parking space and head down-hill, put it in gear and pop the clutch.  I often did it in reverse.  One day during  bump starting I  shucked the thin side cover and the posi-unit.  Bought some new parts (including a battery, I think) and put it together and headed west with 2 buddies during break.  Around Gallup NM the car was making terrible noises.  We parked in a junkyard/gas station, borrowed a couple of those hi-lift jacks, hoisted it insanely high, and removed the transaxle.  The ring and pinion teeth were were worn to sharp edges, which was hardly a surprise since my oil seal installation had been poor, and the diff oil was pretty much gone.  A local garage guy took us to town to buy parts.  We sat in the bed of his old dark green Chevy pickup while he and his pretty Indian girlfriends sat up front.  He was running drag slicks in the rear, because there was a 413 Chrysler in front.
I still fondly remember the bellow of the 413, the bright sunny day, and all 3 of us sliding feet first the length of the bed finally stopping against the fortunatley closed tailgate

He re-assembled the diff and trans with New bearings AND seals and we were on our way West.  Howled like craxy at certain speeds, and we got real good at checking the trans oil without even jacking the car. (I recall a 3/4 inch 12 pt bow wrench fit the square oil fill plug).  He had mis-installed the little pin that blocks reverse, so once again selective parking was the order of the day.

Drove those poor thin gears up and down the California coast, scaring vultures out of the trees along the ocean highway, then back to Michigan, then home to Massachusetts.