Will it start?

[Chris]

Cor! I can't claim to have any childhood stories nearly as interesting as you or Chris - the closest I got was probably skirting death by taking old CRT TVs apart in the 80s with zero clue just how much energy can be stored in the capacitors and tube itself.. I didn't find that out until much later when I was repairing computers for a living and regularly had to change the fuse in Samsung Syncmaster monitors - which we used to joke lasted precisely 13 months - and accidentally brushed my hand against the back of the tube. That hurt.. worse than accidentally grabbing the wrong bit of an HT lead!

There was also the time I grabbed the incoming (mains) live while changing an old AT PSU.. but that was more warm and tingly, like I'd stuck my hand in a warm bath that was vibrating. Oh, electricity.

I spent my childhood more interested in these things, so not nearly as much fresh air and excitement!

I guess that I was very lucky with my child hood years with my parents always having a decent size garden to
do things ilike climb 100 ft oak trees, be able to fairly safely use an air rifle and let off a few fireworks, some
homemade prototypes, some shop bought, you could legally buy them then .
The law then changed and you then needed to be fourteen or over, that didn't effect me by then .
Fortunately I was lucky and didn't end up with severe burns or broken bones !
My dad was a fireman and use to threaten to show me pictures of stuff that had gone wrong with children
playing with matches etc, although he never carried out that threat .
The thing is I wouldn't change much if I had another shot at childhood, things were totally different back then .
My other thing was that from an early age of around 7 years I could ride a bike and was given errands like
riding down local news agent to get dads fags (20 embassy) and use the change for sweets .
Shock horror I know, but this wasn't abnormal, things did start changing and was asked who the
cigarettes were for and then they started asking for written confirmation !
The two wheels gave me a bucket load of freedom as I got older, I could vertually do everything and wasn't
restricted by public transport, the main restriction was that none of us had much real money, sometimes
enough to get a can of coke and a mars bar.
Most of use use to make our own entertainment, sea fishing for one, you dug your bait whilst tide was out
then returned for high water to hopefully catch a few fish, virtually no cost involved.
Most of us would have liked a bit more money then but might not of been such a good thing ?
I count myself fortunate.

[aaronjb]

Naturally any idea of canal boating wasn't in the picture. No canal for starters, just a river. No slow boat either. Here's a picture of me around 1973 in the little boat I built using a 9.5 Hp outboard.

 

Cor! I can't claim to have any childhood stories nearly as interesting as you or Chris - the closest I got was probably skirting death by taking old CRT TVs apart in the 80s with zero clue just how much energy can be stored in the capacitors and tube itself.. I didn't find that out until much later when I was repairing computers for a living and regularly had to change the fuse in Samsung Syncmaster monitors - which we used to joke lasted precisely 13 months - and accidentally brushed my hand against the back of the tube. That hurt.. worse than accidentally grabbing the wrong bit of an HT lead!

There was also the time I grabbed the incoming (mains) live while changing an old AT PSU.. but that was more warm and tingly, like I'd stuck my hand in a warm bath that was vibrating. Oh, electricity.

I spent my childhood more interested in these things, so not nearly as much fresh air and excitement!

[Eggbert]

Awesome! Sounds like we were two peas in a pod!

[Chris]

I sort of suspect the leisure would begin "after" the engine is started.

When I was young, slot car sets were just coming out and I found them much more interesting than model railroads. So speed came into the picture and slow paced leisure was a thing of the past.



Naturally any idea of canal boating wasn't in the picture. No canal for starters, just a river. No slow boat either. Here's a picture of me around 1973 in the little boat I built using a 9.5 Hp outboard.

 

Regardless, I like mechanical things and am often fascinated by how "old" things work so I couldn't resist posting the canal boat engine being started.

I did have and still have my old Victory Industries (VIP) slot car set, still runs well and still puts a smile on my face .
As for you boat, I couldn't compete with that but I did cannibalise my grandads old Norton Villiers two stroke mower engine that I fitted into a bolted together bed frame .
On reflection I don't know how I managed to get it running as there was no tutoring from anyone?
I did play with stuff like Meccano etc so I did have the experience with nuts & bolts but that was about it
and I was only 12 or 13 ,this was the mid 70's .
This to me was a great achievement when I wound the cord around the fly wheel and after a few pulls was
up and running, although lots of blue smoke .
I then managed to use the clutch and throttle to achieve a couple of laps around the garden, wasn't particularly
quick due to the lawn mower gearing, this was rectified by getting my uncle to weld a larger sprocket onto the
the very small drive gear designed to work at just above walking speed .
The higher gearing worked with lots of clutch slip to get things moving, I was now driving not around the garden
but along the foot path !
This sort of scared me a bit being low to the ground, although I was probably only doing about 15 mph,
The foot path run was repeated a few more times, then my dad found out and mentioned what I was doing
was illegal, nothing was confiscated and was'nt  banished to my bed room .
Back then I don't think the law would have done much apart from making sure this kind of practice stopped before someone got hurt, dad would have probably got a visit from Mr Plod, which really wasn't good .
My point is I am still addicted to old school stuff including my old slot cars and yes it does drive my wife to distraction but hey .thats life .

[Eggbert]

I sort of suspect the leisure would begin "after" the engine is started.

When I was young, slot car sets were just coming out and I found them much more interesting than model railroads. So speed came into the picture and slow paced leisure was a thing of the past.



Naturally any idea of canal boating wasn't in the picture. No canal for starters, just a river. No slow boat either. Here's a picture of me around 1973 in the little boat I built using a 9.5 Hp outboard.

 

Regardless, I like mechanical things and am often fascinated by how "old" things work so I couldn't resist posting the canal boat engine being started.

[aaronjb]

It's a good job canal boating is a very leisurely activity! I mean, you aren't driving your Cobra with a glass mug of coffee on the bonnet, are you

I do absolutely love some of the ingenius starting mechanisms on properly old engines though - the cotton wick "glowplugs" here, or the shotgun-shell starters on some really old tractors.. kids these days with their electric starter motors and glowplugs!

I am particularly fond of the really old (1900s) land speed cars for the same sort of reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAx69e4GN44 is one of my favourites from the Revival

[Eggbert]

What if you had to go through this to start your Cobra?