According to the Weatherman, this upcoming week is going to bring bitter cold to most of the eastern side of the country. Hope everyone has their truck ready for it !
Here in the Atlanta Metro, they talking 15-16 degrees next Thurs-Friday..... poor Jason.....9-11 degrees in the Georgia Mountains.

I do a lot of winter camping, hiking ,etc... so the first really cold night, I park my truck outside the garage as a test... because I want to KNOW that truck is going to crank, if I'm in the freaky cold mountains, ready to go home. Yea... and that means testing without plugging in the block heater.

Learned over the years.... put some cardboard under the truck. If you got bad o-rings...they going to leak in the cold. That oil cooler is going to leak, if you been putting off replacing the o-rings. Bad old batteries.... will they crank an cold old engine ? Is that old starter still got the power to spin her up ? Bad injectors.... you going to know it.

Testing at home is a lot better than finding yourself stuck out in freezing weather ! I think I'll take a video of my old truck starting.... IF... it starts...

Let the BS begin...

 

Got down to 27 where I live two nights ago. 3800 feet elevation. Truck started right up. No romping and with a MINIMAL amount of fuel smoke. Manually operated glow plug relay with a push button mounted in the cab. Block heater not plugged in. Two year old batteries. Motorcraft synthetic 5w40 2000 miles ago.

 

Hope they get my starter rebuilt before Wednesday. Won't be fun if I install while it is cold.

Hope your truck fires right up

 

Manually activated glow plugs that are 4.5 years old
Trombetta GPR that is a couple years old
Denso starter that is 4.5 years old
NorthStar AGM pure lead batteries 4 years old
266,000 mile OEM injectors

The 23 (January 2000 build) year old truck starts up like it has been waiting for me to say "GO".

We may have a white Christmas this year. The last time we had one was in 2010. Bill, stay warm and enjoy the hike/journey.

Brad, we are hopeful the rebuilder gets your starter back to you before the cold weather rolls in!

 

New Odessey extreme batteries, good glow plugs & relay, fresh oil a week ago & starts turning the key as soon as the WTS goes out -10°C
I can live with that!

 

One other winter tip.... make sure your 4x4 actually is engaging.... yea.... there's a story about that....

 

If you have your headlights on AUTO, switch them to OFF before you start. No need to have the extra drain during a cold start. My e99 did not have the Auto option, but my 2002 does. It is convenient for sure.

Also make sure you shut off the heater blower when you park it. If you have any sort of elec gremlin thing going on, that blower could start turning and drain your battery down in no time - even on the low/off setting.

Avoid smashing the e-brake all the way to the floor during winter. The cable will either snap or it the brake won't fully disengage.
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If your door is frozen shut, grab it down at the bottom and pull, instead of reefing on the door handle. It gets brittle when cold and will break. My 2002 Arizona truck - living through it's first real winter - dealt that one to me already.

 

For my 2002 I have found that cold starts around below about 20F need to have around 1 min glow plug time. Temp lower than 10F I plug in engine heater for at least 1 hour. Also, for expected high temps below freezing I have radiator shield to help keep temp up. Been working fine for me for the last 20 years.

 

​​​​​New glow plugs, injectors, relay, UVCH, couple of Odyssey batteries, I think I'm ready...

-30 for middle of the week. Wish my truck some luck.

 

[QUOTE=Sous; We may have a white Christmas this year. The last time we had one was in 2010. Bill, stay warm and enjoy the hike/journey./QUOTE]

In 2010, I drove my truck to Alabama for Family Christmas because it was going to snow..... was snowing by the time we headed home.... 120 miles to go, I wasn't worried about getting home, I have a Super Duty 4x4 !
We made it 119 1/2 miles.... our subdivision has two hills maybe 500ft in elevation, the old girl stopped dead in her tracks... put her in 4x4... backed up and started again.... didn't move.... No 4x4 !
We had to walk that last 1/2 mile.... The wife still gives me the LQQK when it snows.... and she won't get in the truck to go drive in the snow !!

Side joke... wife is from Maryland... so she has snow boots. She grabbed her boots when we left the house. Problem was, she has dark Navy Blue boots...and Black boots.... she didn't pay attention until she started putting them on to walk that last 1/2 mile to the house.... yea..... two LEFT boots. ! I got blamed for that too ! lol

 

Being from the south, my first MT winter was difficult to adjust to. I was honestly not used to starting a truck that soaked in an arctic freeze all night long.
A noco battery tender and webasto engine heater have been just amazing to have in the winter.

 

Never heard of a Webasto, that would be a leg up for sure.

 

It was the first I had heard of them. I tried to do as much research as I could, just not a lot of info about them it seems. At least I didn't find much in American English.
Mine paid for itself in the first winter, not plugging in the block heater. For those times like grocery shopping, I just turn it on and if the coolant temp drops, I think it's 140 or 180, while I'm in the store it fires up and keeps it warm.

 

Well shortly after my hopeful post earlier to get my starter back. The shop called late morning.

Starter is installed. Of course had to test and move truck.

Awaiting my cold test start in the morning. Fingers crossed

 

Thanks Bill, we’ll be fine up here. House is warm and 2 dogs curled up at our feet. We have in-floor hydronic radiant heat - warm floors are Devine! There is a hoard of hot chocolate and plenty of human-friendly antifreeze in stock.

If there’s enough snow to slide down the hills, we’ll build a big fire at the gazebo and brew some chocolate for the kids to drink while they thaw out between building snow creations and extreme sledding.

Dawn’s truck will get fresh Bitterroot injectors tomorrow and has new glow plugs and less than one year old batteries. We just rebuilt the oil cooler as well. The truck has a manual-shift transfer case and Warn hubs, so 4wd is reliably available if needed.

Since she works at a doctors office, she will likely go to work no matter what the weather is - but the dogs and I will just hunker down in the warm shop and get some projects done.

If I do go out, I’ll pack a chainsaw full of fuel/oil, a couple of chains and a tow strap. It’s common to find trees down and people that should have stayed home in the ditch after a snow event here.

Y’all be safe wherever you are!!

on edit: no camping trips planned for this event, but last year I woke up in my hammock to this: