I feel for the guys with the hand cranks
I have a hand crank on my old pre-fergie massey harris pony tractor, and when I first got it, it was a 6v starter which had been operated on 12v, which had damaged the starter "solenoid" which was actually a big block of brass you pulled into contact with a bowden cable lever on the dash.
So for a period I was using the solid handcrank to start it up, and it was a cow when it was just warm too, especially for kicking back and making an attempt to break your wrists. The only safety mechanism was a shape to the crank nut which kicked the starter handle out when it fired forwards. I actually bent the handle itself on one backfire...
I've cured it with a later simca car 12v starter which has a solenoid etc, and my wrists thank me for it.
I know I should have took all the 12v parts off, and gone back to the feeble 6v system, but its still a working tractor and quite a lot of the examples still working are running simca 12v starters and alternators.
My favourite was the shotgun cartridge starter
The D2 should have been warmed up a bit more before attempting a start.
