# Idle Automotive Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 4, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497 "2007-10-04T15:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/1 "2007-10-04T15:01:18Z")
Years ago in Africa, I would occasionally see a guy get a stalled car running again by spraying a mouthful of gasoline into some part of the engine. My question is, what part of the engine would that be, and why would this work? ---
**Author:** ![diku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@diku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diku)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/2 "2007-10-04T15:04:57Z")
I would assume it was the carburetor. When I had a car with a carb, and I ran out of gas, I would spray some quick start stuff in the carb to get it going after I had put gas back in the car. This helped cause the carb was empty. It was a gas mixture. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/3 "2007-10-04T15:22:27Z")
Older cars typically had a mechanical fuel pump driven by a lobe on the camshaft. When you ran out of gas you had to crank the engine long enough to pump the carb bowl full of gas. This could take a long time, and if your battery was a bit old, you might run out of juice before you got it started. If the fuel pump was a bit worn, it might not even prime at all at cranking speed. By putting a priming dose of fuel into the intake, the engine would run for a bit (albeit not at anything close to ideal mixture) and run the fuel pump to get things working normally. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/4 "2007-10-04T15:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=diku] I would assume it was the carburetor. When I had a car with a carb, and I ran out of gas, I would spray some quick start stuff in the carb to get it going after I had put gas back in the car. This helped cause the carb was empty. It was a gas mixture. [/QUOTE] I’ve done that before to get a car to start that ran dry, and I was surprised at how well it worked. I could even keep the car running with no fuel pump attached by spaying gasoline from a plant mister every 1-2 seconds. The IC engine (at least, 1970’s era ones) is a very flexible device. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/5 "2007-10-04T18:11:52Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] spraying a mouthful of gasoline [/QUOTE] :eek: Holy crap! Allow me to repeat :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idle-automotive-question/421497/6 "2007-10-04T19:31:48Z")
Yeah, made me cringe, too, to see the guy taking a swig from the jerrycan in the trunk.