Hi Danielle
And yes our climate justifies a good winterization before winter.
If you can load test the battery that would be great because it's simulates the load of the starter and the cold engine. When load testing a battery it's better to use the bigger ones than the smaller fixed load ones
I think they're around a hundred fifty amps a little small for us. But with a good meter and a variable carbon pile like the sun Vat 40.
This meter is a little old but that works just fine and I remember using it when I went to shop class back in the Stone age
In college.
Here's the test just divide the cold crank amp rating by 2 and use that number to duplicate what your drawing out of your variable carbon pile. So if the cold crank amp rating is 600 use 300 amps for 15 seconds and the voltage should not go lower than 9.6 volts. This is how a good shop would test the battery but now you know how so make sure they're doing it right, because most certainly they want to sell you a new battery.
Having a new or good battery is absolutely Paramount. Because it's like a double whammy kind of thing the engine will require double the amperage when cold but the battery can only produce half the amperage when cold. There are battery tray warmers but all you really need is a good battery unless you're in the extreme Arctic. The fixed load testers are significantly cheaper and do serve a purpose although they cannot performance test a battery properly but it'll give you an idea. But in a pinch you can use as something as simple as a multimeter on the DC volt setting and connected to the battery then crank the engine and the voltage should also not be below 9.6 V.
NEXT I always use and would recommend a 5w -30 synthetic oil.
Mobile one makes an excellent extended service oil that'll get you to 15000 MI. I would always change it around 10,000 and the oil always looks
very clean. But if you're in a colder environment
than 62 below I'd go to 5w 20 or 0w 20 in the Arctic.
petroleum-based oils do not have the temperature range synthetic oils do
Like a regular petroleum-based oil in 10W 30 will operate okay between 0 degrees F and 100 f. And the 5w 30 is good to around 20 below the 5w 30 Mobil 1 synthetic will take you from 63 below to hotter than you're going to find on this planet. It's a pretty good deal too because you don't have to change the oil 3 or 4 times just once every 10 to 15 thousand miles and you'll never have oil related problems
And of course check the concentration of your antifreeze better a little lower setting then a higher one that might freeze.
And yes block heaters are essential in very cold climates, I keep my truck in my heated garage but there's times you got to go out and leave it somewhere and it might be 40 to 50 below out plus just as important as starting is that block heaters reduce cold wear starts. Starting an engine cold without the elliptical Pistons properly warmed is actually where the most engine wear occurs.
And of course don't forget the basic common sense of warming your car or truck up before taking off. Some people as soon as it starts they're moving and that's bad and can hear it, the Pistons knocking a little actually because as I said before Pistons are not made perfect circles they're made elliptical with heat dams in it for controlled expansion so it'll become a perfect circle when warm And a set of snow tires certainly couldn't hurt.
And diesel engines have their own issues of course they need the good thin oil also.Very important is that the fuel is Blended with number 1 to the proper concentration or that the appropriate amount of additives are introduced. This will really work and prevent the wax crystals growing too large and plugging your filters.
And remember an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I always worked and managed fleets of diesel trucks and My Philosophy is it's better to use additives because they give a few extra benefits. But when your blending summer fuel which is # 2 with number 1 it actually will reduce the BTUs of heat energy per gallon which will result in less fuel mileage and a little reduced power.
Way up in the Arctic they actually run them on straight kerosene but they only have like 30% engine power they would have on a number 2 diesel fuel but at least they run, and usually never shut them off in the cold winter. But nowadays there's all kinds of system preheaters. They usually cost around 5 grand and are mainly only used in off road equipment. They really are awesome, it's like a little diesel fuel fired furnace that can give you thermostatic temperature control of your cab by Heating and circulating engine coolant, then some of that heated engine coolant goes through a stainless steel coil in your hydraulic tank and your fuel tank. So basically it could be -50 all weekend long then depending on what time you start you can set it an hour or two earlier before you start and you can jump into the cab in a t-shirt and you'll be work ready with warm fuel, engine, hydraulic oil. These little units like ProHeat are worth their weight in gold because you don't need to spend an hour on warming up your machine, Plus you got much less engine wear because the coolant is at normal operating temp. And you'll have no slow hydraulic operations because it's work ready temperature wise.
And a good heaters also essential and it possibly could save your life.
If your heater doesn't work good make sure your engine temperature is getting up to where it should then make sure your heater core isn't packed with debris like pine needles and even mice hair. If your heater still isn't blowing hot air find where the two hoses go into your heater core in the firewall somewhere. And feeling with your hand they both should feel approximately the same temp and it is too hot to keep your hand on them. if not the valve that let's the water into the heater core might be bad or restricted.
Plus you wouldn't believe how many engine block heaters I've seen that were plugged in properly and didn't work, everything has a finite life even the cosmos.
The hot engine coolant that's going out usually is on the back of the head or the block then it goes through the heater core and then it goes to the water pump suction side. This creates a pressure differential which massively contributes to flow which is very important. The coolant coming out of the head could be as high as 20 psi even higher than the cap rating and the water pump suction is in a vacuum so there is a large pressure differential that is proportional to flow.
And of course if your heater blower motor isn't running properly or running at all you won't have any heat or air flow. Any heatmotor that isn't spinning could be as simple as a blown fuse or a bad motor or bad temp switch if you don't have all your blower speeds it's probably your resistor in your air duct . Or potentially it could be anything in the system.
That's why with me the first thing is to understand the system because how you going to find the problem when you don't understand how it works you'll just be guessing and that's not good enough for a professional mechanic. If you don't understand how all the parts work and relate together in the system how are you going to pinpoint the problem, although sometimes a blind squirrel does occasionally find a
nut.lolIf anyone has a cold problem or any problem especially with off-road equipment and trucks send me a p.m. And I will help you.
The only job I ever had in life was a mechanic, one I never really wanted but I kind of got shoved into it by my parents. And l have a lot of experience, and specialized training from the manufacturers.
I also was kind of a monster drummer around the Detroit area but that was a side gig but a lot of fun.
Happy cold motoring everyone love Tatiana.
