• Thank you for visiting HeavyEquipmentForums.com! Our objective is to provide industry professionals a place to gather to exchange questions, answers and ideas. We welcome you to register using the "Register" icon at the top of the page. We'd appreciate any help you can offer in spreading the word of our new site. The more members that join, the bigger resource for all to enjoy. Thank you!

Cold weather starting. How low do you go?

fastline

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
Messages
1,104
Location
OK
Oddly, one of the best starting diesels I ever had was a 3208. Just breathe on the starter and it was going. Granted when cold, it would blow a little blue smoke for a bit. The 3126 has longer crank times due to the HEUI but I have yet to see blue smoke out of it. Also funny how good that intake heater works. Fired up with that nasty cold diesel growl, then quickly cleans up as the intake heater brings it to life.

But I guess I am totally excluding my little Duramax. That girl will fire off in any temp. At close to 250k miles, it has no blowby and uses no oil. Isuzu nailed that engine platform.
 

Truck Shop

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2015
Messages
16,538
Location
WWW.
Most of it depends on how long it's been stagnant. Only real damage I've seen is broken rings from ether and those engines had some hours.
 

Nige

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Messages
28,974
Location
G..G..G..Granville.........!! Fetch your cloth.
But I guess I am totally excluding my little Duramax. That girl will fire off in any temp. At close to 250k miles, it has no blowby and uses no oil. Isuzu nailed that engine platform.
Most Japanese diesels of that size are pretty reliable. I had a company Toyota Hilux with the 3.0 D4D common rail engine in it that ran like the proverbial Swiss watch when I got it new and just the same when I handed it back with 175k on the clock.
 

Jonas302

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2015
Messages
1,197
Location
mn
I fun fall project is trying a new to us machine in cooler and cooler weather to see how it acts then once I find the low point of realitivly easy starting I plug the block heater in and see how many hours it likes before it pops right off I much prefer to give things a overnight plugging in but sometimes that is just not going to happen and its good to know what to expect

I'm sure every cold start and any start takes life off how much Who knows never have had a startup failure though we have a few things that don't have an idle setting notably a series 60 Detroit genset touch that little toggle switch it auto cranks and roars to wide open as soon as it hits with about 30,000 hrs on it now I guess it hasnt minded to much engine has never been touched
 
  • Like
Reactions: DB2

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,039
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
I don't know. I have no experience with your particular engine.
My Cat 3208 starts easily with no heat at all.
I've used a hair dryer in the intake on other diesels. A fellow just told me of non burning propane in the intake to encourage it.
For years I've used a jet heater aimed at it from a few feet away.
My uncle told of a few arm fulls of fire wood soaked in diesel fuel set afire.

I'll say heat to the coolant is best. One person I know of removes coolant, stores it in the house, & heats it on the kitchen stove before putting it in the engine.

Ether as a last resort, used VERY sparingly.
 

Birken Vogt

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,305
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
I had a service call on a cold blooded little Mitsubishi. After diagnosing a failure in the glow plug circuit, I decided I would have a little fun before starting it for good. So I left it disabled.

You guys probably all know that these little Japanese diesels will never start without the glow plugs even at 100 degrees.

I sprayed propane from an unlit torch, brake cleaner, gasoline, carb cleaner, electronic cleaner and anything else flammable I could find on the property into the engine while cranking and not even a pop.

The neat thing was a lit torch in the intake. While cranking nothing, add the torch and it started to fire and take off. Take the torch away and it was back to dead cranking. The torch had to be held there until it achieved some RPM before it would stay running on its own.

But as TS alluded to in another thread, some heat in the air (or water) is all it really needs. Everything else (not heat related) is a poor substitute.
 

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,039
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
I had a service call on a cold blooded little Mitsubishi. After diagnosing a failure in the glow plug circuit, I decided I would have a little fun before starting it for good. So I left it disabled.

You guys probably all know that these little Japanese diesels will never start without the glow plugs even at 100 degrees.

I sprayed propane from an unlit torch, brake cleaner, gasoline, carb cleaner, electronic cleaner and anything else flammable I could find on the property into the engine while cranking and not even a pop.

The neat thing was a lit torch in the intake. While cranking nothing, add the torch and it started to fire and take off. Take the torch away and it was back to dead cranking. The torch had to be held there until it achieved some RPM before it would stay running on its own.

But as TS alluded to in another thread, some heat in the air (or water) is all it really needs. Everything else (not heat related) is a poor substitute.
I like a heat gun, or hair dryer, remove the air filter and put it directly into the intake.
Better still is a block heater.
 

Simon C

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2015
Messages
663
Location
Rocky Mountain House , AB., Canada
Occupation
Heavy Equipment Mechanic
I like a heat gun, or hair dryer, remove the air filter and put it directly into the intake.
Better still is a block heater.
Two Milwaukee heat guns into the air intake with filter out at Minus 30 Celcius got a small cat excavator going fairly well. There is not danger with regard to intake ribbon heaters with this also. Simon
 

Delmer

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
8,863
Location
WI
I heard a story of a North Dakota farmer who kept a tractor at a remote location for feeding cattle, in the old days before easy starting diesels and cheap generators to plug in a block heater. He buried a barrel ten feet deep, drained the antifreeze every time he shut the tractor off, then pumped the antifreeze through the block before starting up again.

One other thing to pay attention to is to limber up the whole machine before working, operate all the functions until the cylinders and motors are up to freezing at least, don't just let it sit ten minutes and then break some cold brittle piece of steel on the first bite.
 

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,039
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
Loggers for years have pumped coolant from their pickup through the engine of a skidder or crawler. I'm told the Ford diesels had head cracking problems from the very cold crawler coolant hitting a hot engine.
Also, corruption from one engine spreads to both.
 

Swetz

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2019
Messages
1,360
Location
NJ/PA
Occupation
Electric & Gas Company
I don't know, but to me, if it is too cold to get a modern diesel started, it is too cold for my aging bones to be outside any how, so no big deal :D.

I do understand if it is how you make your living tho. I used to be on the road for repairs, and worked my fair share in the ice and snow. It seems every time it was real cold and windy the linemen would find a way to break their trucks...yea, they didn't have to work, but I did:(.
 

Delmer

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
8,863
Location
WI
If anybody is going to attempt "spit swapping" coolant from your hot pickup to a machine with heater hoses with quick couplers, the best way to avoid cracking anything is to put a valve in one of the lines to restrict the flow at first and keep the hot engine at a higher idle. If you're worried about cracking the cold engine from heating to fast or unevenly, run the cold engine's water pump with a small electric motor, or plumb in a coolant pump to recirculate full flow through the heater hoses while only taking a little hot coolant from the other engine.
 

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,039
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
If anybody is going to attempt "spit swapping" coolant from your hot pickup to a machine with heater hoses with quick couplers, the best way to avoid cracking anything is to put a valve in one of the lines to restrict the flow at first and keep the hot engine at a higher idle. If you're worried about cracking the cold engine from heating to fast or unevenly, run the cold engine's water pump with a small electric motor, or plumb in a coolant pump to recirculate full flow through the heater hoses while only taking a little hot coolant from the other engine.

I've never done it. Here, ALL loggers drive Ford diesel pickups. I first heard of the practice 30+ years ago. I first heard of cracking pickup heads 2 years ago. Maybe it isn't a common problem. Maybe Ford heads crack anyway?
 

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,039
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
I've never done it. Here, ALL loggers drive Ford diesel pickups. I first heard of the practice 30+ years ago. I first heard of cracking pickup heads 2 years ago. Maybe it isn't a common problem. Maybe Ford heads crack anyway?
Logic says 210 degrees coolant in the Ford, 0 degrees coolant in the skidder isn't a tremendous shock.
 

crane operator

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
8,274
Location
sw missouri
I used to work at a place that the older cranes were all set up with coolant transfer lines. I don't think they had any of the pickups anymore that were set up to transfer. They also had a small lp coolant heater and pump system that was pretty slick to use instead of the pickup transfer lines. It kind of looked like a turkey fryer burner. We never used any of it when we worked there. We had installed electrical block heaters on everything.
 

Delmer

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
8,863
Location
WI
Logic says 210 degrees coolant in the Ford, 0 degrees coolant in the skidder isn't a tremendous shock.
If it was a cast iron boiler, and it's not much different than a cast iron boiler, it would be a big shock. That's why you want to keep both systems circulating while slowly mixing fluids. It's not so much the rapid temperature change that causes the cracking, it's the uneven heating.
 

old-iron-habit

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2012
Messages
4,233
Location
Moose Lake, MN
Occupation
Retired Cons't. Supt./Hospitals
Maybe get a bit of perspective here ....

For every machine that is sold into northern MN, AK, etc, how many are sold into temperate & tropical climates where any form of pre-start heating would be completely unecessary..? How logical is a block heater as standard under those circumstances.?

The biggest problem we had was that there was never electricity in the woods on the logging sites. In the old days we installed quick couplers into the water jacket on the logging machines circulating warm water from the pickup thru the cold engine via ten foot heater hoses. We installed T's in the heater core lines on the pickup end and shut the heat off to push the water thru the cold engine. 15 minutes was all it took to warm the engines to a comfortable summer starting range even at -20 F which was the stay home temperature. By the time one checked things over the machines were ready to start. The truck temperature gauge would take a pretty good hit when that cold water came back. We never revved the the loggers up until the hydraulics and tranny's had a chance to warm up a bit. Never had any issues with any of the components. Today's world! I cant even find a place on my Powerstroke to connect into the heater lines if I wanted to. Most of the bigger loggers have a light plant with enough power outlets to plug the machines in. The bright lights seem to help keep the vandals at bay a bit to. It is amazing how cold the newer machines will start at with nothing. The 545 Cat Skidders will start at 0 F simply by turning the key. Same for the newer JD engines.
 

Welder Dave

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
12,257
Location
Canada
I worked for a place that made bandsaw blades with a water cooled blade welder worth $250K. Owner figured he was saving money turning the heat down at night. He hooked up a kind of elaborate system using a 1500 watt circulating heater to warm up the coolant for the blade welder because it didn't work properly cold. You had to plug it in for 1-1/2 to 2 hours in the morning and the furnace was running overtime to warm the bay up. I don't think he was saving any money.
 
Last edited:
Top