-30 F for

lumberjack48 · January 23, 2011, 07:27:13 PM

indixman1 i showed my wife what you posted, she said your not working hard enough.

This will happen, your feet got sweaty and once they get cold you have to take your boots off to get'em warm again or do what i did, i would run down the road about 1/4 mile and back, worked for me, the crew thought i was crazy.

JDeere · January 23, 2011, 08:17:19 PM

indiaxman1, I have the same problem keeping my feet warm because I wear the Viking caulked boots, safe but not the warmest boots to work in. Even with wool sox and a liner my feet would get cold. My solution is to use a package of toe warmers each day. They are a small pad that stick to your sox and produce heat via a chemical reaction. They generally will last me all day and cost about $1.50. I figure that is a small price for warm feet.

trev · January 23, 2011, 08:28:38 PM

Was out there most of the day 2 cranes and one carrier started but my carrier with a 550 cat refused. Propane torch with flexpipe on the oilpan 2 sets of booster cables,one from the crane and one from the pickup and generator plugged to the block heater, still 4 hrs to start this pig. this thing has new batteries,starter, cables and synthetic oil to boot.
It would be good to stay home in the cold but up here we only have 8 months to work and only 3 of these are real good money making months and they are now.
I work in the tip of northern maine 1 mile from the Quebec border town of Estcourt Station. I am from a small town not far from there called Allagash Me.

trev · January 23, 2011, 08:32:16 PM

Calling for -25 to -35 tonight with wind chills to a -55 tonight. I'm glad everything is running, or so it was when I left there at 5:00 pm.

beenthere · January 23, 2011, 08:49:29 PM

trev
So you left them running?

trev · January 23, 2011, 08:58:49 PM

Oh ya they are still running.

lumberjack48 · January 23, 2011, 09:08:19 PM

trev if that 550 turned over good it must be lack of fuel, wich i'm sure you know.

I had a 353 do this to me , it had fuel, the temp gauge showed 160, it turned over like summer time. I fought this skidder 2 days,just puff black smoke, call the best Detroit men i new, nobody had a answer.
The third night i got a phone call at 2 AM, from John Pane the best Detroit man i know, he said all of a sudden it came to him what was wrong, its flooded.
He told me to hold the shut off all the way out on till white smoke started coming out, then push the shut off in real slow, it popped right off,

HolmenTree · January 23, 2011, 10:27:48 PM

In -30 or colder keep your skidder covered overnight with a army surplus parachute. Back in the day when I was on cut and skid here in northern Manitoba we found those thin nylon parachutes worked amazing to keep the chill off the machine. Of course we also had "hockey stick" propane heaters to keep the engines warm and I think the parachute helped trap some of that heat also.

Willard.

tjdub · January 23, 2011, 10:39:44 PM

Quote from: Bobus2003 on January 23, 2011, 03:43:36 PM

When its cold like that you have to ask.. Is it worth the Hell and abuse your putting the machine through?

I was more asking if it was worth the Hell and abuse I was putting myself through that day. I don't think the bulldozer suffered nearly as much as I did.

barbender · January 23, 2011, 11:30:05 PM

John Payne is northern Minnesota's master of the Detroit diesel. I didn't realize you could flood one, I'll have to remember that.

northwoods1 · January 24, 2011, 05:26:15 AM

The sweaty feet thing can make it hard to keep them warm , I find if you keep the felt liners washed once in a while to get the perspiration out and also have clean dry wool socks every day that really helps. I also got these felt insoles that are about 3/4" thick that will fit in the bottom the felt liner and that really helps to absorb moisture you don't need a really heavy pair of socks if the rest of the arrangement is nice and clean. Another thing that really works is cut out some newspaper and put that in to the bottom of your boot it will absorb a lot of moisture just try it and you will see how well that works, every day just throw it away. Boot dryers are nice

I quit trying to run the equipment when it is brutally cold , because after a while of doing it I found that it was a money losing proposition. It is a lot of wear and tear on the equipment. And the brutally cold temps don't seem to stick around for that long... like for example I had almost -20 yesterday , but right now , +8 f ....

It would not have made any sense to go out yesterday and put the wear and tear on the equipment and myself. Now I can go out this morning and enjoy the balmy weather

Certain operations have no choice you absolutely need to keep things moving , make hay when the sun is shining so to speak.

Norm · January 24, 2011, 07:23:29 AM

Why do you do this, because the payments and bills need paid no matter what the temp is. Sure made me quit whining about the -7F I did chores in yesterday.

grassfed · January 24, 2011, 07:54:02 AM

Well we hit an honest -30F this am but Barton Vt about 10 miles south of us and 500-600 ft lower than us hit -46F. The low spots get killed when we get these cold clear nights.

lumberjack48 · January 24, 2011, 10:07:04 AM

My wife couldn't keep her feet warm running skidder, with Sorel boots with felt liners. So she tried new Sorel's with the Thinsulate liners, never had a problem after that.
Like northwoods1 said everything was to be dry, and if you do it the Jipo way you don't put your work boots on, on till you get to the job site.
On the way to work do not put your heater on floor, it blows right on your feet.
I cut a lot of newspaper out, i think it worked 100% better than the felt insole, i put about 3/8 " thick newspaper, and changed it every night, and hung my boots and liners, up side down over a stove or put them up side down over a heat vent.
Clean dry socks every day, i put a thin nylon like dress sock, with i pair of 100% wool sock on.
If your boots fit to tight your in trouble, your foot should move back in forth a little, if you can't wiggle your toes there to tight.

Mark K · January 24, 2011, 10:20:25 AM

Well it was -24 here this morning. I went out and started my cummin's at 5:30 to go to the woods. She started, walked in the house and she froze up. I've been running power-service additive and cut with kerosene. Fuel lines are froze, think I got some bad fuel because my old F350 is jelled to. Got heaters on my Dodge warming tank and lines up now. Pulled the filter and dumped 911 in. Not looking to good to get to the woods today.

HolmenTree · January 24, 2011, 10:50:03 AM

Not trying to put a bee in anyones bonnet, but from all the trouble you loggers are having south of the line I now can see why 90% of Canadian produced softwood lumber goes to the US. :D

Willard

Mark K · January 24, 2011, 11:59:12 AM

The first real cold snap(-20 or more) of year always tells how good fuel is. I think I just got a bad tank of fuel. Just got the cummin's going, moved everything over to my f350 to heat that up. hopefully skidder won't be gelled. Better move to Canada, things must not gel up up there :D.

lumberjack48 · January 24, 2011, 01:25:19 PM

You have to be care full where you buy your fuel, the first thing i ask, is how is the fuel is blended, 40/60, 50/50 or what.
Get some De-Gel, like Gunk 7532 or any good product for diesel fuel, i always had a few gts on hand just in case.
Always take all preconditions when running diesel in cold weather and you won't have any problems.

Mark K · January 24, 2011, 01:35:32 PM

I must have had water in my tank. Both trucks had frozen fuel filters. Just the way it goes sometimes. At least my wet holes ought to be frozen up good tomorrow. I opened them up yesterday. I got both of them running out there now. This is the first time in about three years I've gelled up. I have a case of Power service and 911 in the shop just in case. Glad I did, would of been a cold ride to town with my Farmall M. That was my means of transportation to get to the barn to feed my beefer's this morning.

lumberjack48 · January 24, 2011, 01:49:07 PM

I got so I'd pull the plug on my fuel tanks in the fall just to make sure. But with all the preconditions i still ran in to problems once in awhile, diesel fuel can be on predicable.

sandhills · January 24, 2011, 01:52:33 PM

Have you guys ever tried Howes treatment? We run it year around in our farm equipment, but add it a little heavier in the winter and have not had any problems with jelling #2 as long as the filters are good (they get changed just before winter) but we also don't have the cold as bad, usually 0 to negative teens is about it. I've tried 911 before and can't say it did any good, lumberjack 48 is right, if you're ready for it, the cold shouldn't bother much. I talked to a trucker that used to haul up into northern Canada during the winter and he claimed they would run as high as a 50/50 blend of #1 and gas in the trucks, sounded kind of scary to me.

lumberjack48 · January 24, 2011, 02:01:19 PM

I've heard that to, but like sandhills said, sounds scary to me, a guy should mix up a batch and see what it looks like, may be they new something that we don't.

fuzzybear · January 24, 2011, 02:51:45 PM

jet fuel is basicly what we run here for equipment in the winter. It's called -50 fuel or Jet A at -50 it still flows like gasoline, but you will burn about 10% more of it in this form. It is a refined version on diesel.
If I tried to run the fuel they sell in the south here it would be ok until about November. After that it would be a ball of jelly. Every winter we get truckers from down south that bring the load of a lifetime here to the north.
The problem is that they are not prepared. Southern trucks will not survive here. One story in point happened 3 winters ago. We had a snap where the temp dropped to -58 for 6 days straight. There were 8 truck loads of spf pads for a winter road project at Eagle Plains, wich is just north of the Arctic Circle. These boys were doomed from the begining.
Now most of you that drive or have ever driven a truck can relate. There first mistake was that when they arived at the start of the Dempster Highway into the Arctic, they had been traveling at around 80-90 kmh and pulled into the truck stop without properly cooling down their tires. The next morning half were frozen to the ground. One driver in a desperate try to unstick his truck managed to break both axels. The 2nd driver managed to get free leaving 6 tire caps sticking to the ground. all of the other trailers were frozen by their brakes. so they got a little smart and decided to pull the pin and just try to get the rig unstuck. Well plastic gladhands are NEVER seen on a northern truck, because they shatter at -50.
By the time I had arived they had 1 truck unstuck. And they had to have the loads 375 km that day. Now the Dempster Highway is every much and more dangerous a road than what you see these driver on tv driving. so 375 km in the winter is an all day affair. by the time the day was over in cost the poor company almost $10000 for my services getting their trucks unstuck from the parking lot of a plowed truck stop. 3 trucks went out on wreckers almost 600km to the nearest dealership. I've never seen any of them back since.
Mother nature will chew you up and spit you out without any mercy if you are not prepared.

g_man · January 24, 2011, 03:41:58 PM

We had -26 this morning. Since I'm a hobby logger, with plenty of cold weather experiences behind me, and lucky enough to be able to, I stayed in today. The only wood I handled was the wood I shoved up the chimney. Seems like a cord.

nhlogga · January 24, 2011, 04:41:12 PM

Skidder started with a couple sniffs. Slasher started with a couple sniffs and jumper cables. Chipper started with a sniff. Blew about 2 wheelbarrows of chips, change filters. Chipped another 15 min or so, changed filters again then finished the load. Feller buncher plain out said sscrew you it's too cold. Called it a day about 10am. Fuel was milky looking in everything even in the L-tank in the truck. Heck fuel even gelled in the torpedo heater. Tomorrow will be a better day. IIt's days like this I am glad I just an employee.