Chains Cold weather starting a diesel

[Gary Fowler]

Our old Ford 9000 came factory installed with an ether system and no glowplugs. In Louisiana this wasnt a problem as all but the coldest days it started without ether. It had a little push button on the dash that shot the ether into the manifold. A can holder was mounted on the engine block and small tubing about like a WD 40 spray tube ran to the manifold. They must still make something like that. A one second shot was all it took. 2 seconds would lock up the motor till it evaporated

 

[John_in_TN]

Everyone needs to remember that some diesels have grid heaters in their air intake system. A shot of either onto a hot grid heater can spell EXPLOSION!!!

 

[knightrider955]

I agree with knightrider955. They wouldn't have made it a 'factory installed' item if it wasn't beneficial.
My Yella Fella groans like a bear in hibernation without a whiff, and jumps like a puppy with it.

The bad thing about ether was that it dried the cylinder walls so there was no lubrication at startup. Modern starting fluid has lubricants in it so this is no longer a problem. And the new starting fluids arent quite as "wicked" as the old stuff.

 

[blueriver]

Cold starts is the one thing I dislike on my Branson 5530 ... if it drops below 50 degrees this girl is hard to start. It has glow plugs and I even cycle them 3 and 4 times and still hard to fire.

I have checked the buzz bar ... it stays on for 25 seconds each cycle. I guess I need to pull the glow plugs and make sure they actually are working.

 

[RaydaKub]

Ether was a great thing in it's day, but for any tractor with glow plugs (i.e. newer tractor) the ether can ignite in the intake manifold instead of in the cylinder. That's not a good thing. For an older tractor, by all means go for it. Just be gentle. I blew the top of a muffler off once with it. Thankfully that was all that blew and the engine was fine.

 

[knightrider955]

Ether was a great thing in it's day, but for any tractor with glow plugs (i.e. newer tractor) the ether can ignite in the intake manifold instead of in the cylinder. That's not a good thing. For an older tractor, by all means go for it. Just be gentle. I blew the top of a muffler off once with it. Thankfully that was all that blew and the engine was fine.

Yeah Ive shot a 3 foot flame out the muffler of my tractor before. Less is more when it comes to ether. On a tractor with glow plugs its better not to use the glowplugs and just fire it up with the ether.

 

[hydro2]

Has anybody had much success with a magnetic block heater?

 

[George2615]

Has anybody had much success with a magnetic block heater?

I just replied to another post about this. I had one. Unplugged it and plowed snow. Parked tractor and went to plug it back in but it was gone. It fell off while plowing and didn't find it till spring thaw. Others have said the thermal heat transfer is not that great. I use an inline lower hose heater which was the cheapest and fastest method to install for me.

 

[grsthegreat]

Has anybody had much success with a magnetic block heater?

nope...i have 2 of them that i tried...did nothing. I have a 3rd that i am using on my whole house generator and that works ok...cause it only holds about 2 quarts of oil.

id sell the other 2 on ebay...but i dont think anyone would bid on them

 

[DAY]

Remember, the newer machines are very different from the old timers. Anyone still driving a car with a hand choke?
Granddad started his tractor by advancing the spark, and then using the hand crank. And HIS daddy got the equipment going with a bucket of oats and a lap of hay!