Hi Dave, you don't have these in PDF form by any chance?  I would be keen on the SR books, but I reckon postage to South Africa would be prohibitive

Thanks Powder monkey. This is a great explanation for a person that knows as little as me. A very useful walkthrough. I'm going to follow your instructions and, as you mention at the end, if I'm lucky, my day will not have gone to sh1t, lol. Cheers mate... have a great Christmas and New Year.

I second this and might have to use this trick when I dire up my genny, which has been standing for about 3 yrs now

And, your engine is a SR2

Where are you?  I'm in Knysna.  There used to be a boffin on this forum from East London, name of Ed, but he hasn't been around for a long time.  Not many SA'ns here, a few have come and gone. 

All the best for your retirement, but please tell me that you will still stay active on the forum.  Your posts have been most informative and were we to lose your input, it would be a huge loss to the community.

Just about anything will do.  What's in your oil can right now?

Following with interest.  I have the exact engine with all the solenoids and bits and bobs, just not the control box. Mine was retrofitted with a pushbutton that worked well, except that one had to manually operate the decompression lever.  It needs 24V to turn over the alternator.  I disconnected my batteries when I found they were charging at over 50V, so have other problems there too.

If you are referring to that place where the funnel is, I don't think it is for oil.  To me it looks like a primer hole.