Restarting after short trips

T

TMarsh

Senior Member
I drive my coupe regularly. Sometimes I make short trips to the post office or hardware store. I generally retard the spark when I leave the car for any length of time. What is the general thinking of barners about leaving the advance lever where it is and just restarting if car is still at operating temperature. Just curios, not a big thing to retard spark at ever restart.
 
Always push that rod up after shutting off the motor. Make sure when you restart, it's still
up. (Yes, I have ocd on that) Your bendix drive will like you!
 
Spark retard/advance has nothing to do with a cold or hot start. That would be the GAV and choke. You open the GAV some more and pull the choke out briefly for a cold start, but you can leave them alone for a hot restart. When the spark lever is fully retarded the spark occurs at top dead center of the piston compression stroke so that the pressure of the combustion will act on the piston on the downstroke of the power stroke. If you advance the spark when starting the car the spark will occur before the piston reaches the top of the stroke, and the pressure of the combustion will push back on the piston, trying to reverse the rotation of the engine. This can lead to a broken starter bendix right quick, and maybe even bent connecting rods.
 
Your car will start very well with 5 to 15 degrees of advance. Use a timing light and mark 10 degrees and 30 degrees on your spark quadrant. You never need less than 10 for starting unless Hanf cranking and never more than 30 at high speed.
Best solution is a Mode B Fordl or Super B+ automatic advance distributor.
 
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