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Hey the boat is a mess so just ignore it! Here is my dear girlfriends first try at handstarting the boat. Her form is not perfect but i am still proud of her.
Wow she made that look super easy! Great Job. I never tried it when I had an A-4 , to be honest was a little nervous. Why did you do it with the water off?
I've been wondering about this. I've owned an Atomic 4 for a few months. I've used it a dozen or so times, and I've read a fair amount about care and maintenance (which is to say, I'm very far from an expert, but do have a little knowledge on the subject.) My impression based on reading (including the Moyer Marine forum) is that the possibility of water in the cylinders is somewhat remote under normal conditions. And normal conditions includes a few cranks before she starts up. I think I heard a guideline of something like 10 or 15 seconds of total cranking time before you should start to be concerned. Does anyone have information or advice to the contrary?
I would think that hand cranking would be much safer in this regard than normal battery starting. That said, I appreciate the video, as it reminded me that I want to get a crank for emergencies.
I might be a bit paranoid after having water enter my crankcase last year from over cranking. Costing me several oil changes!
Now my SOP is water off when starting. after starting I always check to make sure I have water in my exhaust. It may not be what everyone tells you to do but it works for me.
I've been reading a bit more about this since I posted. I'm actually pretty glad to hear that it's not an automatic teardown if I do encounter this problem.
Hey the boat is a mess so just ignore it! Here is my dear girlfriends first try at handstarting the boat. Her form is not perfect but i am still proud of her.
Wow, cool. Marry her and treat her real good, or we will all personally kill you ;-)
This brings back some good A4 memories from the days when this was the engine in *every* boat.
Also reminds me of my '66 Peugeot 404, which did have a crank handle, and a balky starter. Also a stripped transmission linkage, so for a while I had only second, neutral, and third (out of "four on the tree").
Old guys (meaning the age I am now) would get all misty watching me crank her over. Had they known I had only 2 gears, they'd have realized I had the modern reincarnation of their Model Ts.
One thing that nobody has mentioned is when you are using a crank you should always keep your thumbs back and not around the handle...Engines have a tendency to kick back or backfire...This is good for a broken thumb if you are holding the crank as she was...
I just recently attempted (successfully - after SEVERAL attempts) hand cranking my Volvo penta, and it was considerably more difficult than that. Diesel engines require a lot more force apparently. It was actually a two man job, not sure if I could do it alone, maybe in a life or death situation...
Anybody else hand crank a Volvo penta?
Diesel engines require a lot more force to hand crank.
The ignition on a diesel comes from compression (not a spark like an A4) and you have to create that compression by cranking, hard.
Will try to hand start my A4 now that I've used the engine crank to check out the valve and cylinder movement with the head off. Looks simple as can be. Looks can be deceiving though.
A buddy of mine has a Volvo diesel on his Sabre 28. He always hand cranks it a few revs before starting to circulate the oil. He does this with the compression released.
He told me that he did start it last year with the hand crank. Here is what he did: a crew member held the compression release open, while he cranked the engine. Once he got the RPMs up, the crew member closed the compression release, while he continued to crank, and she fired right up.
The cooling system dumps water into the exhaust to keep it cool and normally exhaust pressure insures it keeps moving outward even against seawater pressure if its a below water line outlet. The I/O's don't have that problem because the type of drive allows the motor to be mounted much higher in the hull and the exhaust is designed so that the water only crosses into the exhaust passage itself after it goes through the riser and down into the elbow meaning it would have to go backwards way above hull water line to get back into the manifold. They must not be able to put as big an exhaust riser on these Atomic 4's for whatever reason and its so much closer to the water line that its possible for the water pump even at cranking speed to fill the exhaust and have it spill back into the manifold which fills the cylinders though the exhaust valves.
Course if you need to crank for longer than 5 seconds (assuming correct procedure) you either don't use your motor enough (gas evaporated from carb) or its in impressively crappy shape.
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