Emergency Resuscitation Of A Dead Engine
Posted: September 20th, 2018, 6:44 am
I wonder if you can help me.
I am writing a work of fiction set on a farm in Britain during The Battle of Britain that features an AA truck on its last legs.
Beyond driving a Ford Mondeo, I have little experience or knowledge of Fords in particular or vehicles in general (as will become evident).
For the purposes of the plot, I require the truck to break down at one point, and, be resuscitated by a farmer’s wife, in a wholly unorthodox manner, to function on an emergency basis (the engine will probably have to be stripped after the emergency has passed).
Are there any known problems that the AA suffered from that could be overcome with a one-time, brute-force bodge?
My ‘placeholder’ method involved the character having at the engine with a hammer. I’m sure that this would be unlikely to achieve the required result, and is, also, rather clichéd (i.e. bashing a mechanism to restore its functionality).
Having read up on how early tractors required shotgun cartridges to start the engine, I toyed with the idea of having my character use a cigarette lighter to ‘do something’ to the spark plugs. However, I lack the engineering know-how to develop this further.
Does anyone know of an emergency technique that might have started a dead AA engine on a one-time basis?
If such a technique doesn’t exist with a Ford AA truck, does anyone know of another model, available in the 1920s, that would fit the bill?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Regards,
S
P.S. I am a first time novelist writing on spec, so don’t have the resources to commission professional research.
I am writing a work of fiction set on a farm in Britain during The Battle of Britain that features an AA truck on its last legs.
Beyond driving a Ford Mondeo, I have little experience or knowledge of Fords in particular or vehicles in general (as will become evident).
For the purposes of the plot, I require the truck to break down at one point, and, be resuscitated by a farmer’s wife, in a wholly unorthodox manner, to function on an emergency basis (the engine will probably have to be stripped after the emergency has passed).
Are there any known problems that the AA suffered from that could be overcome with a one-time, brute-force bodge?
My ‘placeholder’ method involved the character having at the engine with a hammer. I’m sure that this would be unlikely to achieve the required result, and is, also, rather clichéd (i.e. bashing a mechanism to restore its functionality).
Having read up on how early tractors required shotgun cartridges to start the engine, I toyed with the idea of having my character use a cigarette lighter to ‘do something’ to the spark plugs. However, I lack the engineering know-how to develop this further.
Does anyone know of an emergency technique that might have started a dead AA engine on a one-time basis?
If such a technique doesn’t exist with a Ford AA truck, does anyone know of another model, available in the 1920s, that would fit the bill?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Regards,
S
P.S. I am a first time novelist writing on spec, so don’t have the resources to commission professional research.