Winter cold starting trick - plowing snow

[cdahl383]

I'm not the sharpest tack in the box so I'd be afraid that if I drained the oil out of my Cub, I'd probably forget to put it back in before I use it next time...

Haha yeah that would be bad! My wife has the ability to seek out and find any car, dirtbike, tractor, etc parts inside the house and notify me about them and how they don’t belong in the house haha! So there’s no way I could go very long without remembering as my wife would do that for me.

One time I had a dirtbike engine on the kitchen counter. She noticed that right away!

[Eugene]

I'm not the sharpest tack in the box so I'd be afraid that if I drained the oil out of my Cub, I'd probably forget to put it back in before I use it next time...

Haha yeah that would be bad! My wife has the ability to seek out and find any car, dirtbike, tractor, etc parts inside the house and notify me about them and how they don’t belong in the house haha! So there’s no way I could go very long without remembering as my wife would do that for me.

One time I had a dirtbike engine on the kitchen counter. She noticed that right away!

Wife tells the story about me having a Porche engine in the bath tub. She's always wrong. It was a Mercedes 190SL engine.

[cdahl383]

Haha that's funny! I've seen some guys have dirtbikes right inside their house, in their living room, or a spare bedroom. Those guys are generally single though haha!

[Jim Becker]

Wife tells the story about me having a Porche engine in the bath tub. She's always wrong. It was a Mercedes 190SL engine.

Maybe she was confused because the car was called a bathtub Porsche.

[ricky racer]

Haha that's funny! I've seen some guys have dirtbikes right inside their house, in their living room, or a spare bedroom. Those guys are generally single though haha!

In the late 70's and early 80's I was racing motocross quite seriously. I was racing one weekend in the Pontiac Silverdome and was staying in the Farmington Hills Holiday Inn for the weekend. I smuggled my race bike into the elevator and down the hall to my room on the third floor. The next morning there were too many people around to try to take it down the elevator again so we took it down the stairway. Fun times!!

[snoman7c]

I used to have great difficulty getting my '51 started in cold weather. I found out that premium fuel atomizes easier than 87 octane. I run the 92 octane in the cold months and it fires right up as fast as my truck does. I used to hit the carb and manifold with a heat gun to warm it up a bit. That worked well also.

[cdahl383]

Haha that's funny! I've seen some guys have dirtbikes right inside their house, in their living room, or a spare bedroom. Those guys are generally single though haha!

In the late 70's and early 80's I was racing motocross quite seriously. I was racing one weekend in the Pontiac Silverdome and was staying in the Farmington Hills Holiday Inn for the weekend. I smuggled my race bike into the elevator and down the hall to my room on the third floor. The next morning there were too many people around to try to take it down the elevator again so we took it down the stairway. Fun times!!

That’s awesome! I went to the silver dome as a kid to watch motocross, probably late 80s to early 90s. Cool story haha!

[cdahl383]

I used to have great difficulty getting my '51 started in cold weather. I found out that premium fuel atomizes easier than 87 octane. I run the 92 octane in the cold months and it fires right up as fast as my truck does. I used to hit the carb and manifold with a heat gun to warm it up a bit. That worked well also.

I run 90 octane ethanol free fuel in the Cub. I use it for my other small engine stuff in the garage too. I wish they sold higher octane than that with no ethanol. I’d rather stick with the 90 ethanol free vs 93 octane with 10% ethanol.

I’ve heard quite a few people mention heating up the manifold. I’ll keep that in mind.

[outdoors4evr]

I honestly don't know why warming the oil in the pan would help an engine start easier. The oil in the galleys and in the crank are still freezing temp. Perhaps it would get picked up and pumped easier once cranked, but oil cools very quickly when it is pumped through a 1/4" (ish) oil galley on its way to the front of the engine.
Seems like the pan heater would transfer some heat to the block and perhaps warm those oil galleys a little.

I have also seen the tarp over a tractor and put a 100w light bulb under it method. Kinda like this old-time knowledge / ingenuity.

[Gary Dotson]

Car parts in the house? Really? If you were to go digging in our hall closet, you might just dig up a Z-28 crankshaft. It’s been stashed there for many years.

[indy61]

Car parts in the house? Really? If you were to go digging in our hall closet, you might just dig up a Z-28 crankshaft. It’s been stashed there for many years.

DZ 302 or LT1 350?

[Gary Dotson]

DZ 302, #1178

[cdahl383]

Haha that's cool! You should see the basement. It's like a Belle Tire store down there. I have various slicks, drag radials, front runners, rims, dirtbike tires, etc. At least that's in the basement though.

I ordered some new dirtbike tires for my latest project bike and was going to move them into the bedroom temporarily. My wife said hold it! Where are you going with those tires? I said the bedroom. She said oh no, put those downstairs, I'm not having dirtbike tires in my bedroom haha!

I have a couple dirtbike parts still hanging from the ceiling in the basement from bungee cords from when I painted them last month. I should probably move those out to the garage now too haha!

[cdahl383]

I honestly don't know why warming the oil in the pan would help an engine start easier. The oil in the galleys and in the crank are still freezing temp. Perhaps it would get picked up and pumped easier once cranked, but oil cools very quickly when it is pumped through a 1/4" (ish) oil galley on its way to the front of the engine.
Seems like the pan heater would transfer some heat to the block and perhaps warm those oil galleys a little.

I have also seen the tarp over a tractor and put a 100w light bulb under it method. Kinda like this old-time knowledge / ingenuity.

I'm not sure either. But draining the oil out and warming it up and putting it back in the engine did seem to help. The engine turned over faster since the oil wasn't as thick as molasses.

I think part of the problem with my tractor was the hydraulics leak down after shutting it off, so when you go to crank it over again later, if you left the touch control in the up position, it puts a load on the engine as soon as it turns over as it's trying to raise the blade back up again. I noticed once it finally fired that it raised the blade up and then the engine speed went up a bit. Kind of like pushing the clutch in vs starting it without pushing the clutch in. I'm not sure about other Cubs, but mine does not like to be started with the clutch pushed in. I just ensure it's in neutral, push the brakes, and turn it over and it fires up. Pushing the clutch in or moving the hydraulics puts a load on the engine and that might just be enough to make it harder to start when it's really cold, I'm not sure.

I'm going to rebuild the touch control unit later this year. For now I'll just have to deal with it. I put a little wooden wheel dolly under the blade and then lower the blade down on that so it can rest on that with no load on the hydraulics. I can still roll the tractor around if need be too.

[Denny Clayton]

Car parts in the house? Really? If you were to go digging in our hall closet, you might just dig up a Z-28 crankshaft. It’s been stashed there for many years.

I'll have to ask Regina about that!