Blogathon 26/25: Bump

A few days ago, during one of the very many dogwalks I do each day, I was walking past two lads who live on this road. They were standing by the older lad’s van, the bonnet was up and they were making ‘I haven’t got a clue why it won’t start’ noises. The older said to me, as Robyn, Chewie and I were about to pass ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about engines?’ to which I replied ‘I’ve probably forgotten more about engines than I can remember’ which they took as a good sign. ‘Can you have a look at this?’

I sat Robyn and Chewie on the pavement and did the obvious alphabet checks and could find nothing wrong. The older lad (he’s about 25) got in and tried to start it up. The smell of fuel (it was a petrol engine) made me tell him to stop. The fuel delivery system worked so well he’d flooded the carb. We left everything open and had a natter for a bunch of minutes then I said we’ll try to bump start it.

The older lad got in the driver’s seat, the younger (he’s about 17) and I pushed, got a fair speed up and I shouted to try it now. Imagine, if you will, my surprise when he tried to start it on the key. And kept trying to start it on the key. The smell of unburnt fuel returned. I called a halt to the futility, said I’d take the dogs home, and we would RV back at the van in an hour. They agreed.

An hour later, back at the van, I said we’d try and bump start it again but this time I’d get in the driver’s seat. They pushed, we got the speed up to about 8mph then I switched on the ignition, engaged the clutch, selected second gear and released the clutch. There was the expected bump and the engine roared into life. While the engine was idling I asked the older lad about his recent driving experiences. Apparently he’d driven through quite a lot of floodwater before it became an uncooperative vehicle. Well.

I told him how to drive (and for how long) to dry out the electrics – which he did because when I saw him a few days later, he said the problem had not reoccurred.

Let’s just contemplate on the fact neither lad knew how to bump start a car or what a bump start meant.