Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:52:11 -0800
Reply-To: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: High beams not working-lighting upgrades!(was) now non
electric bump start early Friday post...
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On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Bret Berger <bretberger@gmail.com> wrote:
> One of the simple pleasures of driving the diesel Westy is to bump start
> a warm engine when on an incline. Fires right up.
Same for a gas one but the engine doesn't need to be warm. I
often bump start my own (inline VW with a 5sp), since my home parking
area is on a slight incline and my driveway is a long downhill...
"Why" you ask? I dunno, maybe because just because I can and I like
to...maybe because I always have done that ever,y once in a while,
with all my vehicles. Why not? (knowing the List, someone may well
tell me why bump starting a Vanagon somehow will ruin it or kill me,
but....) ..Heck, I've had a few kick start motorcycles than never
ever had the kick start lever actually installed on them....Just shove
it along get it rolling a little and hop on, dropping the clutch just
as your butt hits the saddle, then swing the leg over and continue on
your merry way. Especially useful on a 500 single BSA Goldstar I once
owned, a particularly nasty brute, widely known for 'kicking back'
and boosting the aspiring rider right back off the motorcycle as it
fired........backwards for half a revolution....
That is one of my 'issues' with an automatic transmission
vehicle......no bump start (unless you tow that sucker up to speed)
I've often 'self-started' vehicles without having someone around to
jump from. Had to.... I've had dead batteries at the "Ends of the
Earth"....30 kilometers out an abandoned track in Baja, 50 miles
into the Ruby mountains in Nevada, etc etc...I'd still be walking
back, with the battery under my arm, from some of those places....but
with a (sometimes) huge effort, I got the vehicle rolling enough to
pop the clutch and get going. When I was a starving ski bum I went a
whole season without a working battery in a Falcon panel wagon.....(I
have only ever had one auto trans vehicle around..a subaru forester
that we have right now. Because someone gave it free to my SO ). My
other peeve with those is they shift at stupid times...100 yards
before the crest of a grade.....half way through an icy corner...if
you aren't really careful...and they are a bitch to get moving in low
traction situations...In My Experience Only...YMMV..
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