Easystart; is it really evil?

You forgot to say that big sloping single cylinder got so hot you could actually see it glow in the dark...... Oh yes! I remember it well! My mate had one and my 350 Douglas Dragonfly was faster..... The reason most of them had a sidecar was you could not pick em up if they fell on you..... Best bike I ever had though was a Norton Vincent hybrid. Solved all the problems of the 'orrible girder forks and went like poo off a warm shovel. Built her meself in 1961 and wish I still had her now......

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Ar! Took the engine out of my Series C rapide and put it in a Norton Dominator. Wonderful bike. You are right though, the trick was in getting the manual advance/retard lever and mixture setting just so then take a really determined and convinced swing. A faint hearted prod and it spat at you in distain....

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The fact you need "easy start" means your engine is sick and needs treatment - like fixed properly.

Easy start is only a quick fix - like taking asprin for a headache which keeps coming back - sod the saprin, find the cause of the headache and treat that. Likewise with your sick engine - find out why you need easy start and fix that problem before you wreck the engine with repeated doses of ether.

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Just for the record my engine doesn't need easy start, it starts fine whatever the weather, it was a rhetorical question as I have heard comments about easy start and wondered about the truth of it.

That's not to say I haven't had plenty of experience with it in the past.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.nwcc.info>North Wales Cruising Club</A>
 
Steve, had you heard an engine choking on Easystart, you would not be asking the question!

The only time I would use it is with an engine that has not be fired for a long time (years rather than months), and needs a kick in the pants to wake it up, or as a means of starting in emergency when the battery is too low to turn the diesel fast enought to fire it. But strictly only when its an emergency - like a lee shore situation.

As to addiction, there are various theories about it, thoygh as far as I know there is no final answer why, but it is definitely true. I had a boat once with a perfectly good BMC 1.5 in it. For some reason the previous owner had always used ether to start it. And without ether it was a total pig to start - several minutes cranking before it would condescend to even attempt to fire. I persevered with non-ether starting, and it gradually improved over the season until it was starting quite happily without the vile stuff. Even in Novemeber with temp little above freezing it would catch.

That winter I stripped the head down, cleaned it and rebuilt it. It was no easier, or harder to start than before. It was in good condition anyway, and did not actually need to be stripped as it turned out, and continued to run without Ether quite happily for several more seasons.

So why for the first couple of months without Ether, would it not start easily? I still can find no reasonable explanation for it., but the first few weeks I ws convinced I had a duff engine, it was so difficult to start from cold. It sorted itself, and was quite happy by the end of the season, and no further improvement was gained by stripping and cleaning it - nor was it any more difficult to start afterwards. It always continued to be an easy cold starter right to the time the boat sank, a victim of the 1987 hurricane.

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Used as it should be in an emergency there should be no problem, imagine the litigation if a product sold specificaly to start engines constantly broke them, it would have been withdrawn years ago..

As for adiction this rumor is put about by people who do not fix the problem but just keep using easy start. "it will only start if I use easy start, therefore it must be addicted to it.

David

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For what it worth a contractor called Bill has worked for me for at least 10 years. He has an elderley Ford digger which he starts in winter using Easystart. In the summer it starts without. The engine is so old that It does not have glow plugs. Having read the thread,in the pub last night I asked him how old the engine was - he reckons 18 years. It has a top end overhaul a couple of years ago. The actual digger is roadgoing and has 91,000 miles on the clock. Clearly the number of engine hours is very much higher because the engine is digging most of the time not driving. Looks to me that if Easystart caused some of the things posted in the thread, Bill's digger would have been ancient history years ago

<hr width=100% size=1>Def: Yachting - a way of spending the kids inheritance
 
Most folks spray the easy start into the inlet manifold. If it is sprayed 'near' to the air cleaner and sucked in by the engine there is less risk of damage.

I used it on a Volvo MD1 engine some 30 years ago, when it fired it knocked a chunk out of the exhaust valve and in turn the valve seat and head. Can you imagine how much Volvo can charge for a replacement cylinder head? I was lucky enough to find a secondhand one which even then cost £200 but I have had a distinct aversion to the likes of easy start ever since!

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
I disagree David. My BMC was fine when I overhauled it, nothing wrong whatsoever - rings good, compression good, injectors checked out etc. After I stopped using ether, it was extremely diffiult to start, gradually improving until by the end of the season - without any further attention it was starting normally. The subsequent overhaul made no detectable difference to starting or running. I know of several other engines which have been weaned off in this way and now start and run as they should, where previously they would not.

But I still know of no rational explanantion why this should be. The evidence of 1st hand experience of several engines is clear though.

I stopped using ether in my own because it was a pain to have to dismantle the engine casing every time I wanted to cold start the beast - particularly at sea after a passage under sail.

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Just a short post script. It just so happens that I was on a RYA diesel course last week and the use of easy start or similar was not recommended for all the reasons already mentioned.

A premature explosion can apparently damage both push rods and con rods.

Phew!

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Not bad, nearly right, it in fact pre ignites as in pinking in a petrol engine, it doesnt break the "carbon seal" (an old wives tale) it actually breaks the piston rings.
from an old fart who has rebuilt more diesel engines than he can remember.

if you really need a starter fluid on a shagged engine use wd40, the propellant gas burns a lot more slowly or less violently than ether (the main constituent of easy start) and so does not put such a load on the piston and rings
stu

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk>http://www.beneteau-owners-association.org.uk</A>
 
Perkins 4-99 ..... vintage engine fitted to my boat in mid 70's when built. Guy never fitted the diesel pot and electrics to the Cold-start. So for 30 yrs ..... got its squirt of Easystart when cold. Started and ran ok. When I bought boat about 6-7 yr ago - I fitted the diesel pot and electric to the Coldstart plug. Did what the Owners manual said and it fired up as though it was just out of box .......

I had been told by various - including engineers that engine would probably be difficult without ES ...... proved 'em wrong.

OK - many enginers have told me that it gums up rings, causes excessive pressure when it fires, blackens the air-intake etc. etc. Even to burning holes over the years in pistons .....

30 yrs and my Perkins was ok ..... only demise was due to water in block - NOT Easystart .....

I was lucky maybe ?? I'm not the only one who can relate similar ...

<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel ..... <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/>http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/</A>
 
Never - ever use Glow-plug / Coldstart and ...

Easystrt together !!

Separately on own - ok ...... but not together !!


<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel ..... <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/>http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/</A>
 
Mike, we'll have to stop talking Bikes, or Kim will kick us off, but: the thing that amazed me about the old Panther 120 was that when I took the massive double decker sidecar off it, it only went about 3mph faster! massive torque, no speed! Mind you, solo it would carry on up a vertical cliff at the same speed too - as long as you could keep grip with the 'orrid 'ard Avons which had built in self lube properties!

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same speed .....

reminds me of Land Rovers ....... got my first Series 2a ..... got 14mpg and 65mph.

Stuck 3 ton of boat behind and got 14mpg and 65mph

Next LR series 3 ........ 14mpg, 70mph

Yep you guessed .... 3 ton of boat 14mpg, 65mph .....


<hr width=100% size=1>Cheers Nigel ..... <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/>http://www.geocities.com/solentlifeuk/</A>
 
the old panthers in trials trim (with chair) were damn near unstoppable, like you say pure torque........i also got fired over the bars, but that was by a400 Maico enduro......kickstarts on the left!!!!! what a pig!!! went like hell once you got it running.......two stroke with a decompressor!!!!!......keith

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