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

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

That is interesting, Ian. I can not recall ever seeing this on any truck let alone a White. All the RC's I ever saw at WMCA had the ether start assist option. What year model RC and what engine model?

74 IIRC, pre NTC, originally intercooled 350. It had a rare spec for an RC, massive radiator, 9 ton, six spoke front axle, RTO 12513, 5.29 44 Rockwells on RTE 460 on forged beams, GCM rated at 74tonne.

In USA and Canada all vehicles come equipped or can be optioned with a block heater. Makes a huge difference with starting. There are a few different types all being electric which are magnetic heater that is stuck to the oil pan, an electric heater that goes into the block itself and ones that are inline of the heater hoses that heat the anti freeze. The inline ones are great because you have almost instant heat when you start the car as the anti freeze / coolant is already warmed up. Electric battery blankets are great as they keep the battery warm and you do not loose as much CCA.

Oils as mentioned are also important. natural oils can go done to 5w and synthetics 0w. Most common oil was either 5w40 or 0w40.
One of the farm tractors my dad had had a metal air cleaner, dad would sit this on the wood stove to warm up and then put it back onto the tractor just before trying to start. The effect was drawing in warm air and the tractor was a lot easier to start when dad did this.

I was at a friends house who has a collection of small dozers. On one of them it had a small pull start petrol motor which you would start first, the exhaust has plumped into the main diesel exhaust and the coolant was also plumped through this small motor and main motor.

I read the travel stories of an american who drove a diesel F350 through Russian during the winter. Temps were getting down to -60. The vehicle was equipped with heaters in the diesel tanks to make sure that the fuel did not gel and the vehicle would actually start. In those extreme temps a lot of vehicles do not get shut off and are left idling when not being used.
LPG can be a real bugger in the cold, and vehicles with LPG were a lot harder to start than any petrol or diesel.

Originally Posted by crash

... On one of them it had a small pull start petrol motor which you would start first, the exhaust has plumped into the main diesel exhaust and the coolant was also plumped through this small motor and main motor.

.....

This used to be very common with dozers in particular - a favourite setup for Caterpillar. The book about Antarctica I mentioned above they had a D6 with this. With temperatures as much as 40 below the procedure was to use a Herman Nelson preheater (blows hot air from a small petrol motor and a petrol burner) for an hour or more to allow the petrol motor to be started, which would then warm up the coolant for the diesel for perhaps another half hour before the main engine could be started. Their Nodwell tracked carriers had Detroit diesels, and as noted above, these were a lot easier to start (perhaps helped that the installation was designed in Canada).

A different setup I have seen on an old IH dozer was an extra combustion chamber that communicated by a valve to the main cylinder. Equipped with a small intake valve that went to a separate intake manifold with a carburettor and petrol supply. Pulling a lever opened the valve into the main cylinder and closed a throttle in the main air intake, so that when cranked a petrol air mixture was drawn into this extra chamber, which was equipped with a spark plug, run from a magneto. The lower compression enabled easy hand cranking, and the engine, started as a petrol engine, was warmed up before moving the lever to the running position closed the valve into the main cylinder, and opened the throttle on the main intake. With any sort of luck, the engine then continued running as a diesel.

Both these setups originated to enable the diesel engines (impossible to hand crank) to be started without needing an electrical system (other than the selfcontained magneto). As customers demanded electrics other than for starting, these sort of systems became redundant. Some early diesel tractors used cartridge start, another way of getting the same result.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

74 IIRC, pre NTC, originally intercooled 350. It had a rare spec for an RC, massive radiator, 9 ton, six spoke front axle, RTO 12513, 5.29 44 Rockwells on RTE 460 on forged beams, GCM rated at 74tonne.

After giving it some thought, I think it was '76.

The Effie we had in Canada had the block heater, the plug was in the front grille and lots of places like shopping centres, car parks and most motels and hotels had plugs in front of each parking spot to connect to. We rarely stayed anywhere like that preferring to "boondock" as they call free camping over there, was great to wake up after a fresh six inches of snow overnight and bears wandering past. We found in really cold conditions that we could use a full 9kg bottle of "Propane" as they call LPG in four or five days if running the gas furnace in the slideon most of the night.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

After giving it some thought, I think it was '76.

The spec gives it away. It was one the the US built imports known inside WMCA as the CBU's. WMCA imported a batch or two of RC's when they were just commencing Oz manufacture of the RC and needed stock. I wonder where an 18000 lb front axle came from. White made axles were 12000 and 14000 lb. Autocar had some whoppers made in house. Fortuna Engineering reckoned they could bend one to get correct RHD alignment. The steel beam set in concrete in their alignment bay bent and pulled out of the floor before the Autocar axle bent. Whoopsie

The big ol Cummins N12 I looked at the other day had a de,compression lever, as did the a DB 900 we had on the farm. The FIAT dozer I still use has 4 de.compression plugs in the block, a dash fine thing at cold morning start up. The early FIAT tractors had the pilot motor ,viz a viz the Caterpillar John mentioned, a really good principle in that the engine got warm and oil and fuel pressure increased prior to the injection of distillate

The I H system worked well too , tho looked a bit strange to some with spark plugs on one side and injectors on the other. I think some switched to distillate automatically ,others operater controlled

Dave

Originally Posted by Hogarthde

The big ol Cummins N12 I looked at the other day had a de,compression lever, as did the a DB 900 we had on the farm. The FIAT dozer I still use has 4 de.compression plugs in the block, a dash fine thing at cold morning start up. The early FIAT tractors had the pilot motor ,viz a viz the Caterpillar John mentioned, a really good principle in that the engine got warm and oil and fuel pressure increased prior to the injection of distillate

The I H system worked well too , tho looked a bit strange to some with spark plugs on one side and injectors on the other. I think some switched to distillate automatically ,others operater controlled

Dave

Jesus wept. How old are those Fiats? What model dozer?

Pilot motors went out of use in new tractors 40 years ago at least.

That IH engine series were called semi-diesels. First seen in the 1930's and left behind by improvements in diesel engine design and electrical systems. Better starter motors and batteries giving push button start killed all these weird ideas on starting diesels. Gone by about 1950.