Winter Is Here In Manitoba

[Merle Coggins]

Are you a Packer fan stuck in Kansas?

I remember several years ago, when I was still a field service tech, I had a service call down in Kenosha, right on the lake front, on a -30 day. The wind chill was around -60 to -65. It was cold, but not terrible as long as you kept moving and working. I also had plenty of warm clothes. Next day it was -35 and the wind chill was around -70. The boss kept me busy in the shop all day. It didn't feel much different outside to me, but I didn't complain.

Merle

[knighthawk]

I guess I'll always be a ''Packer fan '', although it' gets pretty hard to support them some times !! .......... When I was still working out of St Paul, Minn. about ten years ago, I had the ''outside'' job for this trucking company, worked outside all year long, worked out of a service truck. It was during one of those ''weeks below zero'' the I swore to move as far South as possible !! AND, as you know , there hasn't been any weather like that since I left !...............till now

[Normspeed]

We're still under a state of emergency in CA. Cold so fierce, I had to close my doors and windows at around 3pm. brrrrrrrrr. I do have the heat on tonight though.

Great weather for cruising in my Plymouth. I get enough heat through the firewall to take off the chill if I roll the windows up. Weatherstripping? I dream of weatherstripping. Car still fires right up and runs ok after a few minutes of warmup in this chilly weather. That's with no chokes in the carbs. It's so much fun, the comments a rusty old wagon gets. I parked at Home Depot this evening, and a guy stopped and said, that's a beautiful car! I thanked him and didn't point out the rough spots.

[james curl]

I drive my 48 everywhere and get comments about my driving a valuable old car to places like Wal Mart or Home Depot. Don't bother to tell them that the Old Car price book for a twenty footer is less than $3500.00. Then watch as they get into their $35,000.00 pick up and drive away. I am amazed that people have no perception of the value of old cars, too many watch Barrett/Jackson and just assume that any old car with shinny paint is valuable. I always try to tell them that they too could enjoy the hobby, almost for the cost of two packs of cigarettes a day for two or three years. I have almost as much in my modified engine as the Old Car price book list as my cars value which still only increases the value to me. The winter weather finally arrived yesterday, sleet and freezing weather. 29 and going to get colder with more of the same. I already have a bad case of cabin fever and do not know how some of yall put up with three months of it. I notice this thread has the most posts of all of the treads so I must not be the only one with cabin fever.

[55 Fargo]

Norm, can't imagine having to put the heat on in Glendora, been there a few times my self. Why not have a heater in the car, even if it's not that cold it's still nice to run the heater fan a bit to warm things up. I know what you mean by the firewall heat, I have the heater out of my 48 Chrys right now, in the fall I took it for a cruise and the heat from the firewall did heat up the interior quite a bit.

Even if your air temp is near 32, after a few minutes your engine and carburation should be fine, it's when you start getting down to 10 and 0 that longer warm ups, cold air that can cause icing occurs.........Fred

[55 Fargo]

What do yah mean 3 months of winter, up here in Manitoba, winter is from Nov the 1st to April the 1st 5 month worth, now if you look on a map of the USA and follow I 29 all the way to the end of it in North Dakota to Canada, this is Manitoba, land of the cold. Last night -20 here at my place 3 hours north of Grand Forks ND.

[knighthawk]

It only got down to 10 degrees last nite, not going to get above freezing for a few more days. Still got 3'' ice on the ground,. Hey, Rocky, when I lived in Texas I was telling them boys about how cold it used to get and how much snow there used to be. They just wouldn't believe it. I,'ve seem the whole town of San Antonio shut down because of ice on the freeway (only till noon when it melted off ) They even sent T V camera crew out to the ''hill country'' when we got some snow a couple years ago.

[1just4don]

Minus twenty last night here. Went out to start a tractor with NEW batteries and pluged in all night. It just said uhhhhh nooooo yaaaa dont. Read as spinning SSOOOOO slow it would NEVER start,,,even ether was a no win with a slow spinning starter!! How do you guys with minus 40 get things started when its THAT cold?? Even plugging the block heaters in dont throw enough heat to make the starter spin!! I need your input here,watcha think Canadians??? THX fer any help!!--don-

[knighthawk]

The Canadian boys will have different and more modern solutions, But as I recall, we used to use a 2000 watt (or higher ) tank heater, and bring the batteries inside over night to keep warm , or use a battery warmer..A warm battery will start most cold motrs like the middle of summer !

[55 Fargo]

Okay,one thing with tractors and heavy equipment, if possible should be inside a heated building, most heavy equipment is stored in abuilding at about 45 to 55 or so. Here are some cold weather tricks used in remote areas, bush camps, arctic conditon construction sites etc. You can use a propane tiger torch and heat under the oil pan and heat up the engine area. Some people will start a fire in a shallow metal pan or a metal tub and when the burning wood becomes ember like they place this under the oil pan or engine. You could also drape a large canvas tarp over the front of the tractor to block the cold air and wind to allow it to warm a little better. Another thing, up here in The Great White North, we have re-circulating block heaters, they go on the water hose, they heat and circulate at the same time, had on once on a 6 cyl, this thing would stay warm, I would have the engine heated up very quickly, if it wasn't too cold it would be almost instant heat. Another item is an electric battery blanket, keeps th battery warm and allows a lot more cranking power. these are things we do here in Canada to keep our vehicles and equipment running when it's cold............Fred

[PatS....]

Minus twenty last night here. Went out to start a tractor with NEW batteries and plugged in all night. It just said uhhhhh nooooo yaaaa dont. Read as spinning SSOOOOO slow it would NEVER start,,,even ether was a no win with a slow spinning starter!! How do you guys with minus 40 get things started when its THAT cold?? Even plugging the block heaters in dont throw enough heat to make the starter spin!! I need your input here,watcha think Canadians??? THX fer any help!!--don-

Take the battery out and take it in the house...yes it's a pain in the a$$, but if the tractor is plugged in and the battery is nice and warm, chances are it will start.

A second block heater won't hurt either

Taking the battery out is less trouble than trying to get the thing started in the cold.

Like Fred said, cover it up, keep it out of the wind, or leave it running.

My dad used to go out an hour before bedtime and start his truck. He would leave it run an hour, shut it off and go to bed, and when the nightly nature call happened, he would go out and start it again, sit and have a smoke and a milk and go shut it off. It only sat maybe 3-4 hours at a time...not long enough to freeze up and not start. (Not making it to work wasn't an option with him)

[knighthawk]

You proabley won't believe this, but when I started working for this trucking company, in St. Paul, Mn.,, in early 70's, they let the trucks run all night, they used 30# oil, and had no block heaters !!! Afew years later , they switched to 15w40 and put 2000 watt tank heaters on them, then all we had to do was make sure the cords were plugged in and not melted. Seems to me they would draw about 20 amps each !! If they were pluggeg in and working, some still needed a shot of either, but they usually started. PLUS, they had air starters, huge air tanks and a 2'' air line, so as long as you could refilling the air tanks they'd crank for ever .

[1just4don]

This is on an IHC 1486 and their is two batteries one under each door,,,little bitty peek hole to put your hands into work on them(like taking them in or out OR putting on battery chargers and such. The guy that invented THAT location for batteries needs a dead posy of dandelions. Cant get two hands in there,,,and the cab is OVER it all, steps in the road,,,a cazillion wires hanging down, a few radiator hoses that go up top, and the bottom of the cab frame!! Cold NOT have found a worse place to hang them!!!

Long story short I 'AINT' taking them out,dont have a heated shed. I HAVE to start it in the morning but only supposed to be 5 below tonight. I am leaving the block heater going all night again , plus tonight,all day AND night actually have a 2A. trickle charger on the batteries(hopefully that will keep them a bit warmer,than nothin). All else fails, just wont load corn till later and it will be warm enough then!!! Thought about finding an old blanket or tarp and try to cover it over the hood but there is a smokestack right in the road and IF the wind comes up,it sails away anyway. Plus cant wrap it well enough from underside anyway!!! And for sure cant wrap anything around batteries. Thx for the suggestions, will proceed from here. If we continue to have such weather might try to find an old heating pad to try on a battery. Thanks again!!!

[PatS....]

Some BBQ briquets in an aluminum roast pan works well. Place under the oil pan. A couple of hunks of metal on each side of the tractor to block the wind.

[martybose]

In an earlier life I was in charge of a phone company central office. To put it in perspective, we converted 480V AC into about 1400 amps of 48V DC to run all of the equipment; we used solid copper bus bars that were 18" tall by 3/4" thick for power distribution. We had a gel cell battery bank ( 7' tall by 4' deep by 80' long) that would run the entire installation for 8 or more hours, along with a big diesel generator and enough fuel to run it for a week.

The interesting thing was that the electronics liked to be cold, so we ran a BIG air conditioning plant to keep the equipment at 60 degrees F or less, but the batteries liked to be hot for maximum efficiency, so they put the batteries and the invertor/convertor bays (yes, when we ran on the battery plant we had to synthesize AC for the AC system and some of the equipment) into a sealed room with a dedicated AC unit and kept the temperature at 90 degrees F!

It was always a shock to open that particular door and go through it in either direction!

Marty

[knighthawk]

A friend of mine has a 1066 and a 1466, and I kinda remember where the batteries are, it' a 1/2 a day job just to get to em . I'd cover the engine with the tarp, cut a hole in for the exhaust stack ( tarps are cheap ! ) and get a BIG tank heater, like I referred to before, They used to make the warming blanket for batteries, but I wouldn't know where to look now, plus it wouldn't help you right now. Why not try a heat lamp in the general area of the batteries, especially if the area can be covered some

[knighthawk]

ROCKY , I admit that it's not so bad, ( the cold ) when you wear a warmer jacket, and , or, clothes........................ BUT !! It's still dammed cold !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[RobertKB]

I never seem to have trouble starting my vehicles when it's really cold. All I do is plug the block heater in and make sure I have a good battery and they start everytime. My daughter and her husband never plug their vehicles in when it is really cold and their vehicles start all the time. I know mine would start but it is much better for the engine if they are warmed up a bit by having them plugged in. Also, most of our gasolines have gas line antifreeze in them during the winter months but if it is really cold and I am travelling on the highway I usually add a small amount of extra gas line antifreeze. Any water in your tank during cold weather can really cause problems and gas line antifreeze elimintates that source of trouble.

[1just4don]

Knighthawk,

I have a 1066 too,,,those batteries are a pain also but a 'better' location than the '86 series. The 66's had one on each side just in front of the cab. They used the long big 6 volt batteries and hooked them in series so they ended up with 12 volts

The '86's put the batteries 'under' tha cab where you can barely 'see' them but cant get two hands on them to work on it. Long as everything is new and shiny,,,not so bad!! Put thirty years of rust and grime and problems appear overnight.. I threw away the stupid battery box fronts long ago, they made it double worse. You can slip it in the front of the box,,,but hooking them UP and keeping the wrench OFF a ground when attached to the hot is a daunting task when there is so much in the road,cant see and cant get second hand in,,,even without the coat sleeves. -d-

[knighthawk]

It has been a long time since I actually saw the 1066,but I do remember they were hard to get to , and if your 1866 is under the cab, then I agree, your in big trouble. You may have to resort to the '' good ol' days '' use a hand shovel ! Also sounds like a good excuse to build a garage or at least a bigger one ! Good luck.

[knighthawk]

we used to have hose heaters that you could put in the bottom rad hose, they worked pretty good on cars, but the big tank heaters were the best ! I used to bring home the used ones ( bad cords ) fix them , and put them on everything.. I know my buddy put some his tractors, the 706 would start just after a couple hours. They were 2000 watts at first , but then they got bigger one yet, so we had to replace them all with the bigger ones. So course I offered to dispose of the '' small '' ones, had boxes of them at one time. Gave them all away about 10 years ago, figured I'd never see any cold weather any more !!!!!!

[knighthawk]

supposed to get close to 40 degrees today ! Firsrt time over freezing for about a week. Still got about 2-3 inches of ice on everything, got about 4 to 6 '' of snow comming tommorrow.............still, very, very slippery

[PatS....]

Will it be THIS slippery????

http://www.break.com/index/icy_roads_in_portland.html

[Normspeed]

Heck Pat, here in L.A. we drive like that in just a light drizzle.

Will it be THIS slippery????

http://www.break.com/index/icy_roads_in_portland.html

[knighthawk]

I think I saw that guy ! I'd say it was that slippery the other day then we got 1/2'' new loose snow on top of the ice. I know it had to pretty level to walk on it . Now the snow on the ice has partly melted, gives you a little traction. Now they say 6 more inches on top of that, tommorrow !