Has anyone heard of a engine block heater on a skidder that you use quick couplers and rubber lines and hook it in your trucks heater hoses so the warm engine in a truck exchanges antifreeze with a cold engine in a skidder to warm it and get it going?
Everyone does that here in northern Minnesota. It's the only way they can get the skidders, etc to start when it is -20 or -30 degrees. One guy (usually the boss) gets to the worksite early, hooks up the skidder, drinks coffee and listens to the radio for a while, then starts the skidder, uncouples from that and moves to the next piece of equipment and starts the process over. By the time the rest of the crew gets there, everything is started and warmed up and the boss is wired for the rest of the day from drinking all that coffee. ;D
Maine loggers do the same thing.Some of the small time loggers do this.They drive up to their skidder and hook it up to warm it up.
They do it here in Michigan also. More so in the UP where I've even seen them light a fire under the skidder to warm it up.
they are not too hard to build. i have never seen one sold in a kit form. the last one I made I used quick coupplers like on an air line. but with a 3/4 inch ID. you can find them at any place that sells hydraulic lines. Build "T" 's to go in your skidder hoses with a 3/4' pipe nipples sticking out of each one. on the end of the "T"'s thread on the female quick couplers. Do the same with your truck heater hoses. then use a roll of 3/4 inch heater hose. make 2 equal lengths out of the roll ( a roll is 25' this will give you 2 12.5' hoses) put male quick coupleres on all 4 ends of the hoses. plug it in ad you are in buiseness. remember when you unhook to drain the 3/4" hoses into a jug.
PS My wife said just put an electric block heater in like her pickup truck has and plug it into a tree. ;D
Woody
A Currant bush works better than a tree ::)
groan :)
Just hook your heater plug to kite and fly it into the Northern Lights for power
Double groan. ;D
An extra scoop of shell corn usually gets my skidders going no matter how cold it is ;D
I have had to use a propane torch on the bits before they would take them. ;D
That propane torch will also work well on the intake manifold.
Ether and lots of it :o :o :o
It's a Cotton Pickin' wonder there's anything left North of Tennessee. How in the heck do you guys keep from blowing yourselfs into the next county? :o ??? ::) :D :D
Some cranes and other heavy equipment around here have what you would call a startup or warmup engine. Just a smaller engine that is reall easy to start in the winter and warms the whole thing up without doing any rigging of the hoses.
J Beyer
On Caterpiller diesels and JD two cylinder diesels they were referred to as pony motors. Their exhaust would circulate through the big engine's manifold to warm it up and it then supplied the power to start the engine. No batteries required unless the pony happened to be electric start. Some were, some you wrapped a rope around the flywheel and pulled. I heard that Cat still offers ponies as options on machines shipped to third world countries where batteries are expensive and rare.
I had a D2 Cat dozer with a pony moter that started with a pull rope don't matter how cold it was it always started. Just couldn't keep the tracks on it. I wonder if Cat offers a pony moter on there skidders ??? never heard of one on a skidder.I thought the pony moter went the way of the hand crank and buggy whip ::) ;D :)
Dad has a 2 cylinder pony motor on a D13000 power unit. The pony motor has a hand crank. One thing about a hand crank and magneto ignition, if the won't start it's not because they don't have enough fire.
The pony motor makes about 10 times as much noise as the old Cat.
Noble
The D2 track type tractor and the D13000 engines haven't
seen a production line for quite some time. My wife, Becky
who works in the marine engine group says that pony motors
are a thing of the past also. CAT does do things like
air inlet heaters, block heaters, ether starting aids and teflon wiring for cold climates like Siberia. The insulation on conventional wiring will crack in cold climates. Becky's boss, (Dra Wiersema) worked in Moscow for three years and learned to be quiet fluent in Russian. One day he answered the phone and it was the president of the largest coal mine in Russia and he wanted to buy a new mining truck. Dra did
real well with the conversation in Russian until the end.
At that time he told the Russian gentleman that he would
write him. Well, what he was really telling him was that
he would urinate on him. The mine president kept asking
cause he didn't understand and Dra kept saying that he would urinate on him. Ooops. The sale was still made. ;D
It was over on one of the antique tractor forums that I heard about ponys still being around. Now I've heard the rest of the story from Mother CAT's mouth 8) 8)
On those old Cats once you got the pony motor warmed up you pulled the decompresion lever and started to turn the engine over. This got the lube oil loosened up. Never try to start before you had oil pressure then close decompressor and open throttle. Always shot of the gas on the pony motor and let it run dry otherwise thcarb float would bounce on rough ground and all of the gas went ito the base.
Junckyard