For those of you Snow Trac, Kristi owners still sticking with the VW aircooled engines, here's a drawing of what the the front pulley crank nut looks like. It enables you to start the engine with a hand crank without tearing your arm off. I can get dimensions if anyone is interested.
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VW Crank Nut
- Thread starter mtmogs
- Start date
These show up a Vintage VW Meets and VW Car Shows alot. They are a bit of a collector item. Almost every self respecting VW enthusiasts has one. The hand cranck feature on VW's worked better than almost any other make of engine that I have ever tried to 'Hand Start', mostly because they correctly disengaged and didn't break the operators wrist or forearm. The engine needs to be in a good state of 'Tune' to get it to work effectively. VW's from the earliest production around 1938 thru the last 36 HP motors all came with this nut as a standard feature(about 1960). Once the 40HP started production they dropped it except on the industrial engines. However the crank itself was an option pretty much as soon as the war ended in '46. The Crank comes in 2 models, a short one for busses and transporters, and the longer version for Bugs. You are not going to find many of the required longer cranks at Vintage meets.
My truck is hopelessly stuck in a drift, so while I wait for some of my electricians to get out of their 7;00 planning meeting, I'll give you some more info on the Hand Crank. Being a seasoned 35 year veteran VW Hippie I accumulate no less than 30 of the Nuts and over a dozen of the Long crank handels. Even made some home made versions. It is important to greese the end so that it will "spit-out" or disenguage properly. DO NOT LEAN INTO IT! IF it doesn't dis-engauge properly it will either brake your wrist, or your lower fore arm. Not good as these things go. ALSO Make sure your machine is out of gear when attempting to start it for obvious reasons. >
Earl, Ron and I got very proficient at crank starting our machines, at one Vintrage VW Meet, where the pictures were taken that an in the Hot VW's and VW Trends articles, we initiated a "Hand Crank Competition". It was a real show stopper. It completely "stole the show" as the single biggest event at the Meet. It went like this: Get in the vehicle, turn on the ignition, make sure it's out of gear, grab the crank which we had fastened to the side wall under one of the bench seats(3Broom clamps), walk around to the front of the vehicle, set the chocke and throttle right at the carb, insert crank, get it going, close hood and re-stow the crank. This was all done to a stop watch and generally the 3 of us could do it in about a minute and 10 seconds. We had 5 Snow Trac's and one Trac Master at the meet and would instruct people in the croud on how to do it then let them try. This one football player sized guy, who had never 'Hand Cranked' an engine in his life got one of the snow trac's started in just under 50 seconds. The crowd went wild. It was a lot of fun.
Earl, Ron and I got very proficient at crank starting our machines, at one Vintrage VW Meet, where the pictures were taken that an in the Hot VW's and VW Trends articles, we initiated a "Hand Crank Competition". It was a real show stopper. It completely "stole the show" as the single biggest event at the Meet. It went like this: Get in the vehicle, turn on the ignition, make sure it's out of gear, grab the crank which we had fastened to the side wall under one of the bench seats(3Broom clamps), walk around to the front of the vehicle, set the chocke and throttle right at the carb, insert crank, get it going, close hood and re-stow the crank. This was all done to a stop watch and generally the 3 of us could do it in about a minute and 10 seconds. We had 5 Snow Trac's and one Trac Master at the meet and would instruct people in the croud on how to do it then let them try. This one football player sized guy, who had never 'Hand Cranked' an engine in his life got one of the snow trac's started in just under 50 seconds. The crowd went wild. It was a lot of fun.
Thanks for the stories and the good advice Lyndon. I wonder up to about what compression ratio can be crank started?
I think the safest way to use the crank is to stand to the left and, starting out with the handle at about 7 o'clock or so, pull sharply upward. This way if the engine starts and the hand crank doesn't eject, then the handle will be pulled away from you. The natural tendency is to start with the handle at about 12:00 and use your weight to push it down and away from you. This is bad because it places you in the path of the crank if the engine should kick over. You'll get walloped on the first go 'round if the crank doesn't eject. Lot's of grease is good advice too.
I think the safest way to use the crank is to stand to the left and, starting out with the handle at about 7 o'clock or so, pull sharply upward. This way if the engine starts and the hand crank doesn't eject, then the handle will be pulled away from you. The natural tendency is to start with the handle at about 12:00 and use your weight to push it down and away from you. This is bad because it places you in the path of the crank if the engine should kick over. You'll get walloped on the first go 'round if the crank doesn't eject. Lot's of grease is good advice too.
I was able to hand crank 1192 CC(1200's), 1584CC(1600's) and even a 1776 that I had specially built up. It had lower compression than the 1600 Industrial, and was certainly harder to crank. The 1600 Industrial or 126 Motor came stock with a 10 to 1 compression ratio, one of the highest compression ratios that VW ever came out with. They worked well at high altitudes. I had my 1776 built up for about 8 to 1 compression so that it could run on unleaded regular gas. Still it could produce roughly 80 HP and made first and second gear in a Snow Trac unnecessary. The little 36 & 40 HP 1200's were certainly easier to start. I only know of one person that got injured had starting a Snow Trac, a hunting guide in fairbanks. It didn't break his arm but left him with a sore arm for some time. Your instruction on the position is good advice and I highly recomend that anyone trying to hand start an ST4 take your advice.