1966 912 Hard to Start

[Greg Greer]

For years, I primed the carbs on my 1966 912 with a few sprays of gas into each of the four carb throats to get it started. Without this method, the starter would turn, turn, turn, and nothing. This priming worked fine, until recently when I had two minor fires, after my usual priming trick. I am spooked now. When I took off the carbs, the fuel lines to the carbs had gas coming out, and quite a bit of gas came out of the carbs as well. What is going on here? I thought I was not getting adequate gas to the carbs, but apparently so. The car starts up fairly easily once ran for a while.

[Jaems]

All 912 are hard to start. If they have been sitting for a long time. The fuel is dried up in the carburetors. It takes a while for the gas to fill the carburetors.

With a mechanical fuel pump, you have to pump the peddle continuously, while the starter is turning, to get fuel from the tank back to the carburetors. You only want to crank the starter for short period of times, to allow the starter to keep cool. This is why some of us use an electric fuel pump. You just turn on the key and when the fuel pump stops pumping. You just pump the peddle a couple of time and the car will start.

The only problem is that the oil has not spread through the engine and it will start before the oil pressure is up. Some have a switch for the fuel pump to keep it off before there is oil pressure to start the engine. The switch is also useful to turn the electric fuel pump off in case of a accident.

You may have had a float that was stuck. Since you have had a fire. It might be a good idea to rebuild the carburetors. Squirting fuel down the carburetor is not a very wise thing to do. As you found out, sometimes there is a fire.

Good luck and drive it like you stole it.

[seanlonghi]

On my 356 C, I installed an electric fuel pump, with a toggle under the dash.
3 seconds pumping that on a cold star and the engine came to life right away.
May want to consider. Plus was just a cool touch.

[Bob Harriman]

I installed a rubber boat priming bulb in front of the mechanical pump. Works great. Squeeze then get in and start. Reduces the time to start in half. I'll look for a photo but these are easily accessible from any boat shop as they were used on outboard engines.

[801cdw]

How old are your spark plugs? My 912 was giving me difficulty until I changed the plugs, now it fires right up.