Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilibit
Is the cranking required to fill bowls with a mechanical fuel pump sufficient to alleviate (even partially) an oil starved start. |
It depends on how much
oil has drained down in to the pan since you last ran the car. Other factors that can affect that rate, other than time itself, would be things like the position of your
oil filter and lines, and the "clinginess" of your oil. Now, FWIW, when my car has been sitting over the winter months, sometimes five or six months, for the first fire-up of the year I will disconnect the ignition (not that it would start quickly anyway because the bowls are dry) and then I crank it until I see my oil pressure gauge needle bounce up a little, then I re-enable the ignition and try and get it to start. It always takes more cranking, and pumping the pedal, to get the accelerator pump to squirt, before it fires up. In years past, when I had never bothered to keep a
Battery Tender on it, there has been a time or two when I
just barely got her to start before the battery gave out on the cranking. I have never bothered to squirt gas from my bottle down the primaries, nor do I even own a spray can of starter fluid. But, if I had an electric fuel pump (which I don't) I would be extra-vigilant in bringing up a little oil pressure, before enabling the ignition, if the car had been sitting for months.