Hmmm. I agree, 185 would NOT be sufficient... however, the pack is often inside your garage, or home, so it's not cold when it's used... I wonder what the CA is?

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

It must suffer greatly in the cold...........more than an actual battery.

I'm facing 23F temps tomorrow, I can hook the thing to my car and see how it fares tomorrow... although I've not charged it fully lately... it should still handle starting my 87 in the morning...

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

I'm sure it can perform a satisfactory assist function. I might not want to depend on it at 0F. But, I do not think anything is going to jump a diesel at 0F...........clamps are just inadequate.

Brian/Vstech,

This is a bit of a digression from the OP question but if you have a dead battery, and assuming you have some decent cables (1 or 2 gauge with 600A clamps), why not just disconnect the cables from the dead battery and hook them directly to the starting cables? Wouldn't this "bypass" the dead battery and provide you the large amount of current needed to get the starter turning? It seems to me that this would eliminate the time spent waiting around for a severely dead battery to recharge.

Although, come to think of it, maybe there would be an issue in supplying that amount if, for example, the battery doing the jumping is from a Honda Civic and therefore the only way your going to get a big enough current would be to charge the large diesel battery first?

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79 EURO 300D
80 240D

The key with any portable power packs is to keep them warm, in the house, by the front door if you wish. A power pack in the trunk at 10 degrees is useless. Even though cold temperatures thicken the oil (another reason to use a lower pour point synthetic), the cold really takes the punch away from any battery. Personal experience starting an Isuzu pup diesel at 10 degrees with a weak battery: my cheap 500A power pack (at 68 degrees) did a great job boosting the truck's battery.

I've had a booster pack from work, meant for truck batteries, and my friend's Honda, with 5 minutes charging, start the 240D. I've also had a Fiat 500 try to start the car after about 5 minutes, to no avail. Ditto with smaller booster packs for gas sers.

As it turns out, right now I have a fully-charged extra diesel battery in the car, now that it has been fully charged using a 1 amp charger over two days.

Soon I will be taking delivery of a GMC G-30 box van with a 6.2l NA engine, like in an early HMMWV. I wanted to have an extra back-up for this vehicle, that I could take out to the place.

It looks like something in the jump-and-carry JNC 660 category might do the trick.

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

When you connect the cables to the weak battery, what you are actually doing is "bypassing" it at that moment. The OE battery clamps attach to the posts of the battery and the cables from the jump start attach to those OE battery clamps. Most of the juice goes right on by the dead battery to the starter. Of course, you might argue that some of your precious starting voltage is also attempting to charge the dead battery, and, therefore, disconnecting it would assist in the start. I've never bothered to test this theory but have my doubts whether it would provide significant benefits.

The reason folks wait around for a dead battery to recharge is the limitation in the cables and the clamps. If they provided no resistance, you will get the full cranking amps available from the jumper battery. Even a Honda Accord battery can start a diesel in warm weather if its battery is fully charged (provided the diesel does NOT need more than, say, 10 seconds of crank time. Since they do offer significant resistance, the partial charge of the dead battery is necessary, combined with whatever comes across the jumper cables, to start the engine.

I am now looking at redesigning the clamps on a booster pack to simulate the round poles of a battery. Connect the booster directly to the engine electrical, with the juice traveling through the pole ends, and then we would have a more accurate test of how good the booster pack works.

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

How 'bout getting a AAA Card? Worth it's weight in gold!!!!! However, one time when AAA showed up to give me a jump, they used one of those boosters and it got me started just fine!!! Right after that, I replaced the glow plugs and the battery. But the booster pack, itself, was not a problem, nor limited because it was designed for gas engines. That will be my next purchase when I get some $$ coming in again.

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1983 300D, the "Avocado"
1976 240D, 4-spd the "Pumpkin", SOLD to Pierre
1984 190D, 2.2L, 5-spd, my intro to MBZ diesels, crashed into in 2002