The winter season is just around the corner, making cold starts of my Jodel’s Continental O-200A more challenging. I had a little carburator fire last season when I overpumped the throttle while cranking the engine — luckily without consequences. However, I’m thinking an engine primer would make my (and my battery’s and starter’s) life less stressful.
Has anybody done this and can give an idea of a) how much easier it made cold-weather starts, and b) how much work and cost in labour and parts to expect roughly?
Or should I just suck it up and improve my cold-starting skills without engine primer?
Are you able to fit a P-mag of something equivalent on such as aircraft?
Might negate the need for a primer
Do you mean an electric primer? The other day I saw a little taildragger with cowlings off and it had a tiny electric pump, about 10cm long and 3cm diameter.
It seems simple. A line from the top of the stainer to the panel attaching to the primer plunger. A line from the plunger to the inlet manifold. You need to post the same question on the Facebook group for the Jodel and get a few pics of a similar installation to show your mechanic.
Thanks for the picture and the Facebook group, which I wasn’t aware of.
May I ask where the picture is from?
Seems indeed that just one more he in the firewall and a few inexpensive parts are needed, and installation shouldn’t be more than a few hours max.
Any downside to having a mechanical primer?
There is no particular downside to a mechanical primer except the minor effort to use it. It does introduce fuel lines into the cabin, but that is not a regular source of issues.
Installation involves only a little copper tubing and the primer pump itself, which attaches to a hole in the panel or elsewhere much like a switch. Approval if it wasn’t originally fitted to the airframe might be your main issue.
Small Continentals did not always have a primer because the original Stromberg carbs fitted to the engines were self priming by design with throttle closed, when pulled through by hand. Since the engines did not have an electric starter it was natural to prime the engine in this way and a primer was unnecessary. Once an electric start was installed, plus a different Marvel carb which is much better otherwise, a primer became the norm on most installations.
Yep a primer is good to have but there are so many other factors in what makes an engine easy to start. I have no starter in my C90-8F but you do in the Jodel. That’s a pretty big advantage there right away. My engine is so easy to start a child could do it…. cold. Slick mags, new plugs, prop indexed correctly, mag timing spot on, metal prop, marvel carb and the fitted primer are all factors that help.
The starter can still trump all of these things in the event of the engine being half warm in the wintertime. I have been on a lake in the middle of nowhere and made a mess of the hot start. On your own, dark coming down and floating about on the edge of a lake is no fun. A cold engine is easy to start, a warm engine is easy to start but in between is where you earn your stripes. I have been seriously stuck with things that won’t start and I can phone a friend and he will literally start the engine over the phone for me. Never rule out finger trouble.
By all means, fit a primer, but if you have any other fundamentals out of kilter then fix those first.
How about a Skytec high speed starter? These make a dramatic difference to starting, especially warm or hot starts.
Need to make sure the starter relay is up to the job, however.
