Originally Posted by CyberJack
Hi Chris and ODK members,

Yes, That's right.
There was no lever to release.
Correct, there is a fixed pin in the upper part of the winder handle, that trips the starter when the handle is closed. It was always confusing that this pin was never shown in the Victa parts diagrams, but the corresponding hole in the lower section is.
Quote
p.s. These impulse starters were very reliable but were replaced by
the trip lever design after just a couple of seasons.

The anecdotal evidence is that this was because there was a safety concern that
a repairer of the starter would not read the spring casing's instructions -
that the spring should NOT be removed from its casing.

The new trip lever design was repair-friendly; in that the spring could be
safely removed from its alloy enclosure for replacement.
Might be more to it than that, though. The first-generation impulse starter spring came in a pressed sheet metal casing, and was installed and removed as an assembly. This was a single-wound spring. For sure, if the spring came out of the casing, forget about getting it back in without special equipment!

The second generation, with the trip lever, used a 'double-wound' spring like that shown [pic pinched from EBay],

[Linked Image]

This spring is much heavier gauge than the first-gen one, and it winds up as two layers. Thus more turns of preload ['windup' if you like] can be applied, compared to a single-wound spring in the same diameter space.

So I'd expect it to achieve a higher initial cranking speed. This is the critical factor in getting the engine to fire [assuming all is well on the fuel side], and the critical minimum speed is higher on the breaker points ignitions of that day, than it is on modern solid state electronic systems.

Cheers,
Gadge

"ODK Mods can explain it to you, but they can't understand it for you..."

"Crazy can be medicated, ignorance can be educated - but there is no cure for stupid..."