Thursday, 31 August 2006
Bah, crusties!
Just been watching the news about the protestors at Drax power station with increasing irritation. Partly because I was thinking of going to evening of it, but they never replied to my e-mail, and partly because the media couldn't stage a more stereotypical head-to-head if they tried.
The protestors: I could almost hear Tom shouting "bloody crusties" at the screen. Dirty, dreadlocked, poorly dressed and earnest, the lot of them. And, of course, they were spinning poi.
The police: "We've had a successful day, peaceful protests, law and order maintained, etc. etc.. Oh, and we just happen to have arrested 38 people in line with our policy of not letting the hippies get too cocky."
Grr!
I'm probably just irritated from the shit week I've been having. Have spent all week so far writing a social research paper for a conference in a field I previously knew nothing about, then lost most of today to a 4 and a half hour meeting. All fun and games in the SBS!
My question for today: is it still possible to push-start a car, what with all the new-fangled gadgetry they have in them these days? I think I remember someone telling me they don't have spark plugs any more, which would mean you can't jump start them, but what about giving them a good old fashioned shove? Earlier I saw a car stuck in the middle of the road with its hazard lights flashing and burly looking blokes standing around it and was wondering why it hadn't been pushed to safety, is all.
19:00 Posted in Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this
Comments
Well it was probably something to do with the tappets. You don't want to be messing around with them, even if you *are* a big burly looking bloke.
Posted by: Clurb | Friday, 01 September 2006
yes, you can still push start a car
And tappets have very little to do with it
Posted by: plums | Friday, 01 September 2006
Regardless of whether you can push start or not, they could have just pushed it to safety anyway. In their case, a push start may have done nothing anyway, it depends why they were stuck.
I'd guess the most common reason for needing to jump/push start a car would be a flat battery. Jump starting just uses the power from one car to start another - nothing to do with whether you have spark plugs* or not really. Once the engine is turning the alternator generates current so it should be able to keep itself going without power from the helper car.
Now, if you have a truely flat battery in a modern car you may well be out of luck. The fuel injection system and fuel management system both need electricity to work and without fuel injection the engine gets no fuel... All a carburetor based engine needs is the current for the spark plugs so it should be easier to start. It depends on how flat your battery is - if there is enough for the electronics but not enough to turn the starter motor it should be fine.
So basically, the answer is "it depends". It is certainly possible but it there are probably less situations where it will work with a fuel injection engine. I've also heard that you shouldn't push start a car with fuel injection (likewise for cars with catalytic converters) but have no basis for why that is. I'd still give it a try if I had to.
*Diesel engines don't use spark plugs
ps. As we're being pedantic about posts: "Partly because I was thinking of going to evening of it" ???
Posted by: Roger | Friday, 01 September 2006
You cannot push start a car with an automatic transimssion. There is a device in those that connects the engine to the wheels through a viscous fluid. Because of this part pushing the car will never turn over the engine. If the push comes from another vehicle then this part will break and the transmisison, unless kept in neutral (which nobody pushstarting a car would do), will die with it.
Posted by: anonymous | Tuesday, 05 September 2006
Ooh, blimey, one slightly technical post and suddenly everyone's my friend and randoms are showing off what they know about automatics.
So if you can jump start a car with no spark plugs, where do you attach the jump leads to?
Posted by: Bosie | Wednesday, 13 September 2006
The same place as normal? Jump starting has nothing to do with spark plugs.
Posted by: Roger | Wednesday, 13 September 2006
The comments are closed.