Tractor's Out in the Cold Tonight

[jbrumberg]

My NH has "weathered" rather nicely. It gives it some "character."

I've never experienced -40ºF (ambient); -23ºF is the lowest temp that I've dealt with here in MA.

 

[Egon]

My NH has "weathered" rather nicely. It gives it some "character."

I've never experienced -40ºF (ambient); -23ºF is the lowest temp that I've dealt with here in MA.

At -40 F it’s best to let the equipment sit, light a nice fire, get a hot toddy and whatch the world go by.

Plastic & steel may have a tendency to break and the seals will fail more often.

 

[jbrumberg]

At -40 F it’s best to let the equipment sit, light a nice fire, get a hot toddy and whatch the world go by.

Plastic & steel may have a tendency to break and the seals will fail more often.

Good advice for -23ºF as well.

 

[TerryR]

You guys are so cute with your "cold".

You guys are so cute with your outrage. Sorry my sarcasm was too subtle for you.

As for the substance of my original post, we have 11" so far and the local forecaster says the snow will continue until this afternoon. So I'm glad I won't have to trudge through it tomorrow or Tuesday when I get to clearing. I did that with no problem 20 years ago, but at 77 it seems time to use a little restraint.

 

[Thomas]

Also leave mine outside and cover well and throw switch engine heater warms her up,seems to be more problems inside than outside.

 

[Turbys_1700]

You guys are so cute with your outrage. Sorry my sarcasm was too subtle for you.

As for the substance of my original post, we have 11" so far and the local forecaster says the snow will continue until this afternoon. So I'm glad I won't have to trudge through it tomorrow or Tuesday when I get to clearing. I did that with no problem 20 years ago, but at 77 it seems time to use a little restraint.

Terry...
We've got 4" plus here in southern Catawba County and it's still putting it down...
You're gonna get hammered in Boone..
I've got my generator and gas logs ready to go...
Hope I don't need them...
Give me an update on your total...
Could be a record for December...

 

[Oaktree]

I've never experienced -40ｺF (ambient); -23ｺF is the lowest temp that I've dealt with here in MA.

I don't think we've ever had -40 here, but 30+ below isn't that uncommon. Of course we rarely get snow when it's that cold, so no need to try and start the tractor then.

Mine lives outside, tarped most of the year, but I do keep it in my garage/workshop in winter. One less thing to clear snow off of, and given the general cold-bloodedness of LK3054s, it's a few degrees warmer inside and is less cranky about starting. I keep telling myself that "this year" I'll put in a block heater, but never get around to it. Aluminum or pot metal pan so a magnetic one is useless.
The woodstove in the shop takes so long to heat it up when it's below 20 so I don't do much out there this time of year anyway...

 

[TerryR]

Terry...
We've got 4" plus here in southern Catawba County and it's still putting it down...
You're gonna get hammered in Boone..
I've got my generator and gas logs ready to go...
Hope I don't need them...
Give me an update on your total...
Could be a record for December...

They have big loaders "shoveling" in downtown Boone. There's a webcam there but right now it's snowing so had you can't see much:
King Street Boone NC Webcam by ResortCams.com

The Weather Channel's Jim Cantori is in town but I've not been able to see any of his broadcasts because the Weather Channel went down on our local cable system this morning.

I checked our generator a couple of weeks ago, but it's cold enough here we shouldn't get ice, so power may be OK.

 

[jbrumberg]

In addition to the block heater I installed a thermostatically controlled hydraulic filter pre-heater. I do not hear a whining hydraulic pump at subzero temperatures starting up anymore.

I am curious as to the snow accumulation with this storm. The weather models did pretty well with this storm; even at 240 hours out. This is a strong storm. Too cold to snow here in NE.

Good luck.

 

[Jstpssng]

Jstpssng- Your neighbors are lucky that they can get their skidders into their woodlots and get out again with the saturated groundsurfaces in the NE. Despite subzero/single digit AM temps I still have running surface water here. Loggers around here are not happy campers.

They have enough land so that they can pick and choose; Between the father and his two sons they own well over 1500 acres. They are only weekend warriors anyways although they do put up a lot of wood. The father is retired, the son is one of my coworkers. (His brother doesn't get involved in the cutting anymore.)
At any rate it's mighty decent of them to allow me to park my tractor undercover the past two winters; eventually I will get a building built but this winter came on too fast.

I don't have very good luck with engine heaters for some reason; I put about 1/2 dozen into the lower radiator hose of my last tractor over a 15 year period before giving up. The last one didn't work out of the box, but after unbolting the radiator in -10 weather I didn't bother to take the heater back out.
My used 3301 came with a block heater when I bought it; that has never worked either.

I don't think we've ever had -40 here, but 30+ below isn't that uncommon. Of course we rarely get snow when it's that cold, so no need to try and start the tractor then.

Mine lives outside, tarped most of the year, but I do keep it in my garage/workshop in winter. One less thing to clear snow off of, and given the general cold-bloodedness of LK3054s, it's a few degrees warmer inside and is less cranky about starting. I keep telling myself that "this year" I'll put in a block heater, but never get around to it. Aluminum or pot metal pan so a magnetic one is useless.
The woodstove in the shop takes so long to heat it up when it's below 20 so I don't do much out there this time of year anyway...

I had a small kerosene "bullet" space heater which was light enough to carry around and I would often use it to warm the engine on my last Kubota. It also was great for heating a lot of other cold places. After a while it got tired though, and the motor started sticking. I keep looking at replacing but they're all computerized now and I doubt they would last for 50 years the way that my last one did. (My father originally bought it as backup heat for the greenhouses.)