Starting in cold weather GC17XX

[Imold]

If you want to warm oil up, you can do it more effectively with a silicone pad heater permanently glued to the bottom of the oil pan. And, they are not expensive.

You do have to be careful not to use a heater that is big enough to cook the oil.

I use a 140w pad heater on my transmission to keep the oil from getting cold soaked.

That is a valid point about having to much wattage.

Folks used to use the pad heater or magnetic heater with their older vehicles around here but now most of the vehicles up here have frost plug heaters but as far as tractors go they are still somewhat popular, every once in a while you will see a magnetic heater laying on the road just because they decided to let go or the vehicle hit a major bump or low spot in the road, dip stick heaters are kinda of a popular item with folks to.

I have seen diesel pickups with 3 to 5 plugins sticking out of the grill, they have frost plug heater, battery blanket heaters, trans heater pad and some even have the dipstick heater, yep they want their diesel to start no matter how cold it gets just to have them gel up on the highway at 55 because they wanted to save 5 cents a gal on fuel.(just a funny but somewhat true).

I have known guys who have used heat lamps under their hoods or under the vehicle and then cover them up with a tarp to try to warm the engine block up, my ex father in law used to put a coffee can of mixed oil, diesel under his Farmall in the garage and light it then set it under the engine block and then sit back and drink coffee while it warmed up the block, people do all kinds of things to make sure their vehicles starts.

 

[buickanddeere]

Can you provide a bit more information?

Magnetic heaters on the oil pan do not apply thermal energy to the cylinder head, cylinder walls and and piston tops like a coolant heater does.
The combustion chamber has to be warm enough that it doesn稚 absorb as much heat from the combustion chamber air during the compression stroke .

 

[atsah]

External heaters are better than nothing but there is nothing like a factory block heater installed in a freeze plug that heats the coolant and in turn heats the block and oil "some"..

 

[GeneV]

We dipped into the 30s a few days already. No problems here to report in terms of that. I gave the glow plugs a few extra seconds, a little more smoke at startup maybe. That's about it, fired right up.

But the hydraulics though, that's another story, it takes a bit for that to warm up. HST is all groany and it's a bit sluggish. I'm questioning how it will be come winter...I don't wanna be out there for 20 minutes, exercising the durn thing before I could finally get to plowing.

The tractor had it's 50 hr service not long before I bought it, but I'm thinking of doing the synth Amsoil changeover.

 

[CBCGC1715]

I let mine warm up for about 10min.

Go out start it bump the rpm rpm and go get some coffee. She's pretty good by then.

 

[PJohnson]

The owners manual for my gc2310 references the recommended warm up time based on the temp. My recollection 15-20 minutes at a minimum in cold weather was the recommendation.

I usually start it up and then head back into the house to pile on the layers and then clear the areas the tractor cannot reach. That usually gives me my warm up time.

 

[atsah]

When it's cold they are slow for first 15 minutes or so, after I started mine I would give it 15 minutes at 1800rpm and start using it..

 

[ray66v]

But the hydraulics though, that's another story, it takes a bit for that to warm up. HST is all groany and it's a bit sluggish. I'm questioning how it will be come winter...I don't wanna be out there for 20 minutes, exercising the durn thing before I could finally get to plowing.

That's why I have the pad heater. The hydraulic oil never gets real cold. So, it's ready to go with a short warm up.

Mine never acts any different than in the summer when I go to use it.

 

[GeneV]

Mines gonna be parked in an attached garage, it doesn't get *that* cold in there, but I just don't like the sluggishness even in this fall weather.