Starting No. 1 is becoming a simple, first time affair, and in a way I am pleased that I don’t have the luxury of an electric starter. Check the petrol tank, close the sealed cap (to be replaced with something more in keeping when I get a lathe for Christmas...) and pressurise to about 1 – 1.5 p.s.i. Open fuel tap and prime the carburettor. Check ignition off (the dash switch in this case, although there is another on the steering boss) and turn the engine over a couple of half turns. A little hand throttle and full retard (both on the column), ignition on and another half swing brings the engine to life.
Turn down the throttle a bit and ease up the timing advance to about a third, replace the carburettor cover on the side of the bonnet, check oil – usually well over fifty when cold – and wait. Now the timing and fuel are reasonably well sorted, the engine settles into a patient tickover at about 1000 r.p.m. (lower than this and it gets a bit grumpy until it’s rubbed the sleep out of it’s eyes and warmed up). In the meantime the driver is still revelling in the joy of the internal conversations that all of the moving parts are having: to a modern car owner it all sounded a bit dangerous at first but with growing experience one begins to relax and I still find it hard to resist stroking No.1 every now and then whilst this is going on.
