Use of ether for starting

[IndyIan]

I use starting fluid on gas engines all the time... weed wacker, push lawnmower, chain saw. If they sit around and won't start after a half dozen or so pulls a little squirt of starting fluid gets them going. Never experienced any knocking, explosions, etc. Maybe I'm just lucky.

I use it liberally on my old motors for the first start of the season, the 25 year old lawnboy and the really old B&S rototiller. No issues so far but those motors are a bit worn anyways. I won't use it on my 372xp, but it starts pretty easily.
I use to use it on my old snowmobile too, with no bad experiences. I'm sure it wasn't great for the motors but if I got 50 hours of running a year in, I was lucky.

 

[ilander]

What I will say here is probably ancient history, for I have not seen it done in 30 years. When I worked construction in the oil fields we left equipment out overnight at the location. When actual temps are from zero to 40 below F, some engines simply will not start, with or without ether.

What we had was water jumper hoses. We tee'd into the cab heater circuit of our pickup with pioneer hydraulic quick disconnects. Each end of the jumper hoses had the QD's. On the diesel engine we wanted to start, we had similar connections so we could get water to flow through the block.

So what we did was drive close to the cat or backhoe, connect the jumpers, sit back in the pickup and watch the pickup engine temp guage. The temp guage would immediatey drop to it's coldest position. After about 15 - 20 minutes the temp guage would be close to normal. We'd then get into the equipment and the engines would fire right up.

I used this system on my own truck mounted snow blower, which had a chevy six for the truck and a pontiac V8 for the blower.

I also worked for a oil rig moving company where the boss told new drivers if they were caught with a can of ether they'd be fired on the spot.

 

[Turbys_1700]

I have to agree here. Many farm tractors had ether systems for starting rather than glow plugs. IIRC our 9000 Ford had one and the operators manual warned not to push the button more than 2 seconds. It usually started without any starting fluid (ether) unless it was bitter cold in Louisiana which means below freezing. Excess of anything is bad, even water can kill you if you drink too much.

That is true for our 1984 8050 AC. We hardly ever use either due to the southern climate.

 

[Buckgnarly]

I used this system on my own truck mounted snow blower, which had a chevy six for the truck and a pontiac V8 for the .

Oh we GOTTA see a thread with pics about this!

 

[daugen]

So what we did was drive close to the cat or backhoe, connect the jumpers, sit back in the pickup and watch the pickup engine temp guage. The temp guage would immediatey drop to it's coldest position. After about 15 - 20 minutes the temp guage would be close to normal. We'd then get into the equipment and the engines would fire right up.

what a smart idea. Bring your own heat...
No thermal shock to the truck engines going cold so fast? I wonder if they shivered...

 

[ilander]

Buck: Sorry, no pics of any of this, it dates back to the late 70's/early 80's and we never though to take pics of the water jump system. I do have pics of the old snowblower, but don't know where. The blower unit was 8 ft wide, 4 ft high, could blow snow 50-60 feet away. Powered by a 1957 347 ci pontiac V8. The truck was a 1942 chevy 4wd army truck.

daugen: Nope, no thermal shock on the pickup. But what this did do was eliminate all that clatter and banging those old diesels did when started that cold. If you were lucky enough to get one started that cold without preheat, they'd miss on one or two cylinders and pump out clouds of grey smoke until warmed up.

When I was a kid, my dad's Austin-Western motor grader would miss on a couple cylinders when it was that cold and put out perfect smoke rings from the muffler. What he did was have a drive shaft connected from the pto of a tractor to the motor grader engine with a slip clutch and rotate it that way until started. It was complicated and dangerous, he only used it one winter. The slip clutch did not work once and when the motor grader started it over rev'd the tractor - so that was the end of that idea. The hot water idea was much simpler, cheaper and safer, but he never thought of it.

 

[EE_Bota]

What I will say here is probably ancient history, for I have not seen it done in 30 years. When I worked construction in the oil fields we left equipment out overnight at the location. When actual temps are from zero to 40 below F, some engines simply will not start, with or without ether.

What we had was water jumper hoses. We tee'd into the cab heater circuit of our pickup with pioneer hydraulic quick disconnects. Each end of the jumper hoses had the QD's. On the diesel engine we wanted to start, we had similar connections so we could get water to flow through the block.

So what we did was drive close to the cat or backhoe, connect the jumpers, sit back in the pickup and watch the pickup engine temp guage. The temp guage would immediatey drop to it's coldest position. After about 15 - 20 minutes the temp guage would be close to normal. We'd then get into the equipment and the engines would fire right up.

I used this system on my own truck mounted snow blower, which had a chevy six for the truck and a pontiac V8 for the blower.

I also worked for a oil rig moving company where the boss told new drivers if they were caught with a can of ether they'd be fired on the spot.

I like your story. I have often wondered whether in some climates, whether the waste heat of a back-up generator could be put into the dwelling through a similar method. Pull up with the tractor and PTO generator, hook up the power leads and the water hoses, and go to powering and heating the dwelling.

 

[ilander]

EE-Bota: With the cost of fuels now, putting to use any of that waste heat is a good idea and worth rigging up something like you mention to get that heat into a building.

Which brings to light another story. I worked at a Air Force facility once that had a standby generator in a room off to the side. The exhaust was piped outside. The heat pulled from the radiator heated that room quite warm, and a door could be opened to the rest of the building. It was very noisy, but warm. Your idea is better and safer by bringing the warm water only into the building. There would be little noise and no chance of exhaust gas poisoning.