[Vwdiesel] extreme cold starts

[Val Christian]

The most sucessful technique I've used for vw diesels and diesel tractors,
is to put a propane torch on the oil pan.  Move it around, evenly heating the
sump.  When a little snow hitting the pan melts, you know that you've got
the oil warm.  Most of my cars haven't had block heaters.  When they get
older, they tend to start harder, and by then the paint isn't exactly
new on the oil sump.

Doing this on a A1 is easy.  The A2s with bottom cowlings, like my 91,
can still be heated.  Not sure how I'd do this on my A4, but I don't
expect to have to do it in the near future.

The coldest I did this was at -35F with 10W40, which was older oil
(meaning dirtier).

I was once told something like a quart of oil will hold 8oz of dirt at
80F, and if you drop the temp down to 0F, it'll hold less than an oz,
I don't know if this is true, but at times when I've had trouble starting
an older diesel, I've always found that changing the oil helps.  It
spins faster when cranking.

Val

ps: The stories about draining the oil in the airplane when in the artic,
heating it, and then pouring it back into the engine are true.  Been there.
But I was lazy and we used a small propane heater which ducted heat into the
lower cowl flaps.  The oil didn't get as warm, but the cylinders did,
which helped starting.  Also warm cylinders helped reduce gasoline washing
the cylinder walls, which causes increased wear, and loss of compression
at start due to oil depletion in the rings.