I have an 83 Land Cruiser and knew immediately what the problem must have been related to from the outset. It actually has a fan that will kick on when the engine is turned off and the car parked to blow on the carburetor and cool it off.
Incidentally, I still don't believe a word of this story (at least as it's told here). The short delta of time difference between walking _further_ into and out of a store would not have enough impact on the cooling of the engine to make a such a substantial difference as to it starting or not. It simply will not bleed off that much more heat unless this store is a mile long and it's an additional 20 minutes to get a different flavor.
The only reason I express the doubt over it is because it makes the story a contrivance, which makes it pointless. If the person's different activities _actually_ resulted in a significant difference of time the car has been sitting, it's likely the owner themselves would be able to easily deduce what could really be the issue. By pretending the issue introduces some very small delta of time, it arbitrarily masks the true cause (which is the entire point of the story).
"If the person's different activities _actually_ resulted in a significant difference of time the car has been sitting, it's likely the owner themselves would be able to easily deduce what could really be the issue."
Oh, I wouldn't even remotely bet on that. Even in my professional sphere of programming I've been caught by what I call "cognitively available" theories of what the problem is that turn out to be entirely wrong in the end, because the real problem is something I wasn't even remotely considering before hand, and possibly even would have dismissed if it had crossed my mind.
If you don't even know what "vapor lock" is, and I assure you this will describe the majority of car owners, why would you think "time in store" is the difference?
What is cognitively available to this person is that they buy different sorts of ice cream and that causes the problem. It puts the spotlight of cognition on that factor to the exclusion of other things. Even the engineer trying to solve the problem was probably slowed in his investigation by such an appealingly available issue being proposed first; again, I've certainly experienced this in my own professional sphere where someone proposes some explanation that ultimately turned out to be completely spurious, and it takes actual effort to get both myself and my team off of that line of thought.
Is that what that's for? My Mini Cooper does the same, sometimes. I assumed it was something to do with the engine space being so small and cramped, so the fan had to continue for a bit after shutdown to prevent residual heat from getting to the electronics or something.
Incidentally, I still don't believe a word of this story (at least as it's told here). The short delta of time difference between walking _further_ into and out of a store would not have enough impact on the cooling of the engine to make a such a substantial difference as to it starting or not. It simply will not bleed off that much more heat unless this store is a mile long and it's an additional 20 minutes to get a different flavor.
The only reason I express the doubt over it is because it makes the story a contrivance, which makes it pointless. If the person's different activities _actually_ resulted in a significant difference of time the car has been sitting, it's likely the owner themselves would be able to easily deduce what could really be the issue. By pretending the issue introduces some very small delta of time, it arbitrarily masks the true cause (which is the entire point of the story).
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cone-of-silence/