[AT] cold weather woes

[John Hall]

Greg, around here I use straight gas, year around. Now we don't get real 
cold usually. Yes, its gets in the 20's a lot here at night, but nothing 
like what you northern and midwestern guys do. I don't know what kind of 
gas we burn in vehicles, but have noticed my truck has dropped 3mpg in 
the last couple months. At one time, the larger counties in NC were 
REQUIRED to use oxygenated fuel in the winter due to pollution. I don't 
know if we are still burning that crap or not. Any way, back to old 
tractors. We had a recent cold snap where we stayed below freezing for 2 
weeks---that is NOT normal for us. Anyway, I cranked up 4 tractors and a 
lawnmower when it was about 20 outside. None had been cranked in at 
least 2 months. 3 of them were 6-volt. 2 had magneto, the rest were 
battery ignition.  The gas in one of them was put in the tank in 
September, don't know when I bought it. Maybe using straight gas if 
available would help you out.

John Hall


On 1/19/2018 4:08 PM, Greg Hass wrote:
> I have heard many people say "that's a winter job" ; well, it's not that
> simple, at least in north country. Yesterday my brother went to the shed
> to get the Ford Jubilee tractor that he bought last year. Well, it
> wouldn't start. It had previously been owned by the dad of a friend of
> mine. He said that his dad had used it a lot to move snow and it never
> failed to start. My brother was looking on the internet and found a
> tractor site that said no old tractor will start in cold weather with
> summer gas in it.  As soon as he has help my brother wants to tow it
> into his heated shop (he was going to take it to the shop anyway to make
> some improvements to it).  I know someone on the list is going to say
> they know of old tractors that start, but I must go by experience.
> Several years back when I still had livestock and needed my skid steer
> every day as winter approched it would not start until the battery was
> almost dead; hard on the starter and hard on me (23 horse 2 cyl.
> kohler). I spent $125 on parts from plugs to rebuilding the carb.;
> nothing helped. I then noticed the gas was almost gone so having nothing
> to lose, I went to town and got winter gas and from then on it started
> on the second turn (the farm gas I had been using was only 2 months old
> but was summer gas).  Another time, the loader was broke down for a few
> days in the winter so I was going to use my Farmall Cub with a trailer
> to move feed. It wouldn't start, even when being towed. The answer in
> the short term was to heat the carb. and the intake manifold with a hair
> dryer and it would start right up. Come warm weather the Cub started
> great with the same gas. Gas just isn't what it used to be.
>        Greg Hass
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