Thread: Which FUEL is best in FREEZING Climate - Petrol or Diesel?

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

…………... In the USA snow states I have seen trucks with an exhaust bypass that directs warm exhaust gases over the outlet of the fuel tank and the vehicle left idling all night.

Ah modern technology, I've heard stories of truckers in Russia draining the oil and water at night into tin cans/metal buckets which they then heat up on a fire in the morning to put in the truck to get going again. Also Alaskan bush pilots, putting a blow torch in the plane's exhaust pipes and turning the propeller backwards to suck the warmth into the cylinders!

Petrol has a lower freezing point than diesel. Sure, aviation fuel will also work as a replacement for diesel but out of the box petrol needs no changes. Mind you, bio ethanol fuel is a different story since it is prone to attract water which does freeze of course, I am talking about "real" fuel here

What I found on my trip to the north cape is that the stuff in your engine is a bigger problem to deal with since fuel stations modify their diesel accordingly to the season. Engine oil get's so thick that cranking the engine becomes too difficult for a battery that is already stressed due to the cold and coolant can only be modified to go so far (or low I should say). Also, even if you did get the engine to fire the oil would not do it's job and wear your engine pretty damn quick. The cooling properties of the coolant are affected as well in such low temperatures but the big advantage is: it's bloody cold as it is already!

When I made my trip I stopped at my dads mechanic in Sweden and had him put way thinner oil in my V8 to cope with the extreme cold going up north. The spare oil I had with me had turned into molasses...

Then again, I have never been in temperatures below -40c so beyond that I have no experience.

Cheers,
-P

Years ago I owned a Cessna 180 aeroplane. While it was not fitted with this gadget, the owner's manual included operating instructions for a gadget that added fuel to the sump at a fixed rate per second, and it included a table as to how much to add according to the temperature. From memory the maximum amount of fuel added was the same amount of fuel as there was oil in the sump. As the engine warmed up the fuel in the oil evaporated - oil gets hot in aircooled engines.

We travelled quite a bit through winter in the US and Canada in a petrol V8 F250 with slide on camper on the back, minimum temps were about -26 on the thermometer plus wind chill overnight.
The Effie sat for three days at those temps half buried in snow and starting it was only one of the problems, getting the doors unlocked and opened was the first problem and once inside the engine was very reluctant to start but after a few cranks it fired up enough cylinders to eventually start idling. We regularly had temps of -10 to -12 which were more common and it did start much easier at that temperature.
I'm not sure that I'd like to try starting the Oka's Cummins 6BT at such temps, it is hard to start below about 2 or 3, struggles at -2 and won't start at -7 at all, had to wait for the sun to come up and warm the air and things around it before it went that day. I've since plumbed a Webasto Thermotop into the heater circuit which can warm it up before trying to start it in cold weather.
The Cummins has no glowplugs or intake heater hence the hard to start problem.

Originally Posted by oka374

We travelled quite a bit through winter in the US and Canada in a petrol V8 F250 with slide on camper on the back, minimum temps were about -26 on the thermometer plus wind chill overnight.
The Effie sat for three days at those temps half buried in snow and starting it was only one of the problems, getting the doors unlocked and opened was the first problem and once inside the engine was very reluctant to start but after a few cranks it fired up enough cylinders to eventually start idling. We regularly had temps of -10 to -12 which were more common and it did start much easier at that temperature.
I'm not sure that I'd like to try starting the Oka's Cummins 6BT at such temps, it is hard to start below about 2 or 3, struggles at -2 and won't start at -7 at all, had to wait for the sun to come up and warm the air and things around it before it went that day. I've since plumbed a Webasto Thermotop into the heater circuit which can warm it up before trying to start it in cold weather.
The Cummins has no glowplugs or intake heater hence the hard to start problem.

I once worked at the Oz distributor of a line of high quality US made earthmoving equipment. All their engines came equipped with a plug-in block heater as standard equipment. No use here as the heater was 110 volt. The gear was made in Minnesota and their big market place was the mid-West, Great Plains, and prairie states where it does get a tad chilly.

I know from personal experience that the Cummins 855 series do not like starting at temperatures below 5-8 degrees C. In fact Cummins used to supply them with an ether starting system as standard equipment. They would cough and fart and blow white smoke, run on one cylinder then two or three and back to one and so on until the combustion chambers warmed up and stopped blowing copious quantities of the white fuel smoke. Get them running and leave them idle to warm up whilst you had breakfast. The worst were the crane carrier and fire appliance versions of the NTA series. Higher rpm engines and fueled up for horsepower. Real buggers when cold. White smoke like a Melbourne fog.

One of the reasons why I like Detroit two strokes. Always started easily unless almost totally worn out. Start up, walk around and tap the tyres and by the time you had full brake air they were ready to drive away and work.

A lot of 855s were fitted with a decompression lever too, Brian.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

A lot of 855s were fitted with a decompression lever too, Brian.

I can't remember ever seeing one. Where were they used? Marine? Stationary?

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

I can't remember ever seeing one. Where were they used? Marine? Stationary?

My RC 64 had one.