Detroit cold weather starting

[Stephen Alford]

One source for heat is the exhaust from your truck.  Just a length of rubber flex pipe.  Put the exhaust end between the fuel pump and the motor. Twenty minutes and ya can have a coffee.  I usually put the booster cables on as well ,  the truck is running anyway. When I go to turn her over I put the hose in the air intake.  Have used this hose to thaw frozen fuel lines and valve banks. Has worked for me,anyway. I just noticed I have over 200 posts and I am starting to repeat myself.  I may have to join that support group for compulsive talkers. (On and On anon)  

[northwoods1]

One source for heat is the exhaust from your truck.  Just a length of rubber flex pipe.  Put the exhaust end between the fuel pump and the motor. Twenty minutes and ya can have a coffee.  I usually put the booster cables on well , as the truck is running anyway. When I go to turn her over I put the hose in the air intake.  Have used this hose to thaw frozen fuel lines and valve banks. Has worked for me,anyway. I just noticed I have over 200 posts and I am starting to repeat myself.  I may have to join that support group for compulsive talkers. (On and On anon)  

(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)

That is a good idea you can't beat solutions to problems that require something so simple

[barbender]

Simple is always best I like the look of that hilton heater, I went to thier website, they are selling for around $700, that's more in my price range

[treefarmer87]

the loader i looked @ today had a detriot power unit on it, when it was cold last year it had trouble starting, so he took a big tarp put it over the machine and put a heater inside the tarp to start the motor the next morning.

[tjdub]

I poured all the heated antifreeze back in the radiator the thought occurred to me that it was completely pointless because the closed (duh ) thermostat prevented the warmed fluid from getting in the engine anyway!!!    so NO   heating the radiator is not going to help get a machine started or warmed up
Luckily the warmed up battery got me out of there.

I've heard several stories about old timers taking their oil in the house with them at night and setting it near the wood stove.  Unlike radiator antifreeze, heating up the engine oil actually does make a difference, but not as much as heating the battery

I've used about all of the tricks mentioned in this thread.  I have a Honda generator and a battery charger that I'll lug out to run a block heater and magnetic oil pan heater and boost a battery (works.......eventually).  I have one of those flexible ducting tubes behind the seat of my pickup which is enough to get my wood splitter up to starting temp on truck exhaust (it does coat everything with ice though thanks to the catalytic converter!).  

One of my tricks not seen mentioned here is this:  I grab a couple of shovels full of hot coals from my outdoor wood stove and throw them on the ground under the front axle of my truck.  By the time the coals have burned out, they warm up the engine compartment quite a bit and it fires right up.  Probably not something you want to try if there's wind though

[Bobus2003]

I've heard several stories about old timers taking their oil in the house with them at night and setting it near the wood stove.  Unlike radiator antifreeze, heating up the engine oil actually does make a difference, but not as much as heating the battery I've used about all of the tricks mentioned in this thread.  I have a Honda generator and a battery charger that I'll lug out to run a block heater and magnetic oil pan heater and boost a battery (works.......eventually).  I have one of those flexible ducting tubes behind the seat of my pickup which is enough to get my wood splitter up to starting temp on truck exhaust (it does coat everything with ice though thanks to the catalytic converter!).  

One of my tricks not seen mentioned here is this:  I grab a couple of shovels full of hot coals from my outdoor wood stove and throw them on the ground under the front axle of my truck.  By the time the coals have burned out, they warm up the engine compartment quite a bit and it fires right up.  Probably not something you want to try if there's wind though

Thus being the Reason the '94-'03 Ford 7.3l Powerstroke Block heater screws into the Water Jacket at the oil Cooler.. Heats the Oil and the Antifreeze.. HPOP's don't like the Cold thick oil..

I was never given any grief about the Hoses on my '06 6.0l Powerstroke when i took it in for warranty issues..

[Ed_K]

When I logged with the MF model 30,I'd put a furniture blanket over the hood and a charcoal grill under the oil pan.45 mins it would turn over good 1hr and it started. Thought about trying it on the 4-53 .too much oil for that.I'm having the detroit rebuilt right now,it'll be intresting to see how much easier it starts at 10 degs.

[Stephen Alford]

 Just thought I would add a pic of the type of hose I use. The flashing on the end allows you to change the shape ,seems to help.  The truck used for boosting gets a couple of fresh batteries in the fall , the detroits get engine oil changed regularly, filling the fuel tank every night and add  tad of conditioner.  Just getting them out of the wind can make a difference.  The 353 is a 79 (thirty-one years) the 453 is a 68 (42 years) not sure of the long term effects yet, to early to tell.     


  Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank-you Jeff and family,the admins and all those who participate in the forum. Merry Christmas to you all.   

[treefarmer87]

what kind of loader is that. i want a setup with the loader on the truck. they arent very popular around here for some reason

[Stephen Alford]

 Hey treefarmer those loaders are nokka's  distributed by Hakmet.  They have a 3 pt hitch setup and just plug into the tractor hydraulics. 

[Ken]

Our experience is that most machines will start to -20 C (-3 or so F) if they have good batteries and a full fuel tank.  We do have block heaters on the skidders and take the generator when required.  However we are often farther ahead to just stay home when it is any colder.  Too many things can break on those days when steel is more brittle due to the cold.   We've also noticed that it makes a tremendous difference to park the machines out of the wind. 

[Frank H.]

I like to use the generator/block heater for about 20 min, and pull the air filter and have the propane torch by (not stuck in) the intake air stream.  The worn little 3-53 starts every time.  I'd like to try to make one of those cummins grid heaters work on the intake one of these days.

[barbender]

The Cummins intake heaters are very effective. My Dodge has sat for days and started at -15°F if I let the heater cycle a couple of times. I don't make a habit of that, I'm sure it's not good for the engine as the oil pressure takes a good 60 seconds to come up. But it will start, where I have an identical 5.9 cummins at work in a Ford 2 ton, it doesn't have an intake heater and is a pig to start. Anything below 30 and it's a fight.

[Bobus2003]

I know of a few guys that have used Dodge Grid Heaters, or the Ford Powerstroke Intake Air Heater (Its a Screw in type, Looks kinda like a spark plug) on their skidders.. The grid heater is by far the best

[poor farmer/logger]

Bit late on posting but thought I'd throw my 2 cents in anyways. We're just about always working with temps below 0F here in the winter. We've used a little bit of everything over the years. A few years ago we put a webasto heater on our volvo loader. Worked great for the first year then nothing but problems since. Even the service manager where we bought it told us afterwards they have no end to the problems with them. Pro Heat and Espar make a simialr unit as well. They usually run around the 1,000 dollar mark. 7 day timer is usually another 250 more. We used to have a hockey stick heater in the skidder and on the sawmill. It's a burner that looks like a hockey stick that slides into it's house with coolant circulating threw it. Totatlly self contained but of course there's always a chance of fire. After that we had a propan heater with a blower that we aimed in at the engine on the starter side of the skidder. Worked okay but now we have another propane self contained unit that works extremely well. It's from a company in Ontario called E F Heaters. It's got a propane burner that slides in the bottom of a coil. It just goes off the idea that hot water rises. Hot  water goes in the bottom of the engine and pushes the cold back out the top threw the heater again. I'm going to add a 12 volt pump to it though to make it even faster for my D7 Cat. Flame is away from the equipment so I consider it safer that way. Anything that is at home we usually just plug in with a block heater. If it's real cold it gets pluged in as soon as it's shut off.

I too have never been a fan of puttign the cold coolant into a warm engine. Our newer  Dodge Cummins it would never work anyways. You can't get them to warm up when it's cold anyways.

Ryan

[timbuck2]

My TJ 208E has a regular plug in block heater, I use a little 2K watt Honda gen., takes about an hour tho.   But most of the time I keep it in the garage tucked in with a binkie!

[Ed_K]

The home tractor has a heat tape wrapped around the bottom radiator hose and plugged into the box on the deck.It's worked all winter an cost me $6.I would like to try it on the skidder w/small gen,but think it would take to long.

[redneck]

i have a 208 timberjack 353 detroit and i use a small 2500 watt gen.  I plug in the block heater, plug in a small battery charger, and put the coleman generator between the tire and engine so that the exhaust heats up the fuel pump and top of engine.  It takes about 45min to one hour.  Sometimes brought in a third 1000amp battery  that i can hook up with booster cables to the starter or other batteries.  While waiting i go a cut some trees.

[Ed_K]

At this point,if the skidder won't start I'm NOT walking into the bush to cut a tree  .I think by tomorrow night the snow will be hip high  .