Its that time of year. Lets discuss ether.

[td25c]

Talking about either ... Used a can as a diagnostic tool couple day's ago .
Went to fire up one of the gas drive welders and nothing after crank crank crank .
Pulled the air cleaner off & cranked while shooting either in the carburetor and she started & ran fine until I quit with the starting fluid .
No fuel ?
Was able to pull the top off the carburetor and noticed the float / needle valve was stuck shut . Freed it up and ran fine !

Starting fluid also works good as hand cleaner in a can . Spray down a shop rag with it and it will take off old school Detroit oil

 

[Truck Shop]

I personally won't use either-too damn hard on rings. When one of our trucks won't start I wheel the torch out. Remove hump hose to intake and preheat the intake
for 30 seconds or so and keep the flame going while someone cranks it over and they fire right up. Been doing it that way for forty plus years. To me either is a last resort.

Had a beer distributor truck that the driver complained about the engine was making some strange knocking noises. So I went out and took look at it and got a faint whiff of either.
It was an International COE. His metal receipt book holder had fallen off the dog house down on top of the either start button mounted next to the shifter. He drove from Yakima to
Ellensburg- 34 miles like that. Said the truck really ran up the hills. Later that week it started making noise-six cracked pistons on that poor 855.

Truck Shop

 

[RZucker]

Used to work with a fleet of scrapers powered with turbocharged 12V71's, 16 to 1 compression. all were equipped with the propane cylinder style ether injectors to get them started, BUT... the way we wired them you could not inject any ether unless the starter was engaged. Never had any ether issues that way.

 

[cdm123]

Tiger torch in a pice of 6" stove pip with a 90 on the end does wonders, if you don't have any bad leaks lol.

 

[Birken Vogt]

I just had one today. Broken glow plug wire, no start. Older Mitsubishi IDI engine.

I thought I would show the owner some of the tricks mentioned here to see if there would be alternate ways to get it to run before fixing it so they would not have to call me in a panic.

WD-40 sprayed from a can - nothing.

Flammable brake cleaner (had this work a little on other engines) - nothing.

No gasoline on site for the gasoline rag trick but brake cleaner is pretty much the same thing so no dice there.

Propane from a torch into the intake - nothing.

Light the propane torch and hold it in the intake - fired but not real strong. Move the torch away and it will stop firing. Move it back and hold it for a couple seconds and it fires right up.

Some engines are more cold blooded than others.

 

[DMiller]

Used to keep a oil squirt can of white gas in my kit for service calls, pull intake boot back and apply gently as someone else cranked the engine over. That and our engine overhaul drip pans became charcoal trays to heat engines been cold soaked too long, carried 50-100# of charcoal on the service truck just for that reason.

 

[thepumpguysc]

I'm getting a lot of questions, calls & email about it, especially on Perkins & Ford engines.. [no/hard start]
I tell them the "proper way" {CAV/Delphi pump} is to pull the throttle 1/2 way, run the GP's or thermostart & turn the key..
EVERY response is>> "Well, I never had to do that before"..
"What the hell ya want me to tell ya??"
"You've been doing it wrong since you've owned it.. Just try it & let me know how it works out.."
The next call is> "it started, thanks"..

 

[td25c]

Not to mention plug in the block heater for about an hour before starting . Was using the Ford and Allis Chalmers ( Perkins engine ) tractors yesterday . Warm block sure makes the difference in cold weather starts .

A simple tractor / equipment shed with electricity is money in the bank .

 

[Birken Vogt]

In my case it is usually an off grid generator. No heaters allowed/available

In this case we just do what we can to get by because of finances.

If I had one this cold blooded and it was a new unit or a high dollar customer, I would be thinking about adding an inlet heater for some redundancy.

Not usually necessary because the more modern engines will usually start glow plugs or not. Sometimes the starter suffers.

 

[funwithfuel]

I have always shyed away from using ether. Have seen bent rods and shattered liners early on in my career from Yahoos who soak the air cleaner with 3 cans then run around and hit the key.
I got spoiled with the Volvos. Good batteries, they were almost guaranteed a start. Only time that wasn't the case is if the oil was just too cold to pump. Then it's heater and tent time.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[crane operator]

I've thrown tarps over equipment and put torpedo heaters or barrel heaters under them to get something going.

It was up to 30 or so here yesterday afternoon, and after cranking for a little while, I did give my 6-71 a little shot (before the batteries were gone). I didn't even pull air cleaner, just shot a little at the intake (one two count- no can emptying), then walked over and cranked it and it fired right off. I try to get inside what I need the next day, the afternoon before while its warmer. Like td25c says, block heaters and sheds or heated shop.

We don't get near the cold that the guys up north see all the time, but next week we're supposed to get down to 5 F or so, which is pretty cold for here. City has already lost a water line, and if it stays cold for very long, we always lose some in town.

 

[Birken Vogt]

I think it has already been said but I much prefer to shoot it in the intake in little spritzes when the engine is actually turning and preferably remove the air filter or some pipes so it goes in as close to the cylinder as possible. It is better to be able to gauge the effects and meter it in while cranking than to shoot some in the air filter and hope it was enough but not too much. But you got to do what you got to do and especially when the batteries are starting to get sluggish.

 

[Bls repair]

Had a small milling machine that didn’t like starting fluid. One shot would lock it up. After it would turn over again took out the OA torch ,pulled air filter, kept torch a couple feet from filter housing pumped hot air in. Turned it over ,fired up.

 

[Grady]

It gets just about as cold here as anywhere. [arguably] I also like the gas fumes from a rag better than ether when necessary but can usually get by with a block heater - esp. when combined with a magnetic heater on the oil pan to thin the oil out to where it's more pump-able.

 

[kjkoch]

One of the guys I worked with 25yrs ago, had to start some 631Bs, 631Cs, a D9G, and several D8Hs every morning. He ran a 3/8" hose to the intakes and used an old 90wt quart bottle full of gas to squirt a snort in them. It worked great.

 

[John Shipp]

With our machines left off grid in the woods, something we do before dark if we're expecting below 20f is keep machine running, get some blankets and tarps ready, top up one of those kerosene lamps (wick type) and get it lit. Then shut machine off, hang the lamp off a bent wire hook next to fuel pump, throw blankets and tarp over, then pray all night that it isn't a smouldering pile in the morning. Even with 0 degrees f temps, it amazes me how well it starts and runs, like a summer morning start.

If we don't do this, it means a blow heater for an hr, and trouble there is our generators are both diesel so likely won't start up anyway.

We don't get enough regular cold here to have block heaters, etc. But ether has bad reputation here, generally used on old unmaintained beaters, so it gets tarred by the same brush as the derelict machines it starts.

 

[Edward Porter]

I use a whiff or 2 on some machines on a cold morning. It sure helps to have a shed and a block heater. If you can park out of the wind seems to help a lot. -15 here the other morning. Clean filters before winter, 5 or 10 wt. oil, good batteries. Be prepared

 

[Mother Deuce]

Had a excavator turn to jello on Monday. We stiffened up the fuel treatment in the runners and after exhausting all the good cuss words we had we finally created enough heat to get it to fire again. Looked a little like the chicken dance for awhile... as always

 

[rmllarue91]

Here's my shake your head story last winter hd41 sitting for years 20 degrees out 10,000 cranking amps at 24v plus and welder hooked to batteries and six cans of either. One can wide open of good either per air cleaner and it did not rattle . It's was going to bone yard so wasn't to worried. when it finally lit throttle was wide open and only thing I could compare it to was a run away freight train. The cloud of smoke could of filled and high school foot ball stadium.

 

[Birken Vogt]

The old 6.9 and probably 7.3 Fords would do that too. Crank them too much when they were not firing and the fuel seemed to build up inside the engine somewhat. Then when the ether finally reached it or the glow plugs became operational for whatever reason, once it started to fire and burn off the leftover fuel it sounded like it was going to blow for a second.