Its starting to get quite a bit cooler here in Colorado these last few days. With Fall coming and Winter not far behind, I have been wondering what the coldest temperature anyone has been able to successfully start a Mercedes diesel is. How did you do it?

After traveling to up-state New York about 15 yrs. ago w/1966 200D in January, I think that -32deg is COLD. And the old boy still started. The engine had a block heater & the fuel was "winterized" w/50-50 fuel mix.

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MERCEDES BENZ MASTER GUILD TECHNICIAN
ASE MASTER TECHNICIAN
27 YEARS DEALER M.B. TECH
190E 2.3 ITS RACECAR

I posted several articles on a Jeep website, on cold starting tips, last year, I will see if I can still find them. Being up here in the Great White North, it is always sometimes comical to talk to southerners about winter, as they look at us like we are from another planet when we talk about winter time and what we do differently from our neighbours to the south.

I will post some, and come back to this from time to time as I remember some that we use when we are "up north". And if anyone wants to hazard a guess, we are at times discussing things beyond latitudes or longitudes, we refer it as "above or below the tree line". This is Cold Country, no whimps around, its you versus mother nature.

Tonight coming home at midnight the temp in my car said 12.5 Celcius. (55F).

Tip#1.

Park your car downwind.

Tip#2

Plug it in.

Tip #3

Plug in your battery warmer also.

Tip#4

Hook up your trouble light or spot lights around your injection pump.

Tip #5

If you can change to a 100 percent synthetic oil.

Tip #5

Research and Research your diesel filling stations, find out whom uses what levels of cetane index, and ratings, etc... This is actually more of a problem for americans living around the ohio area and south a bit, as it doesnt get really that cold, and certain stations may not order winter diesel. Here in the north we are at winter diesel somewhere around November 1.

But in case you have this problem, heres some tips.

On my car I am helped out by a neat gadget benz installed, called a "fuel preheater",they say this is good to aid starting to around -10C.

There is also #1 Diesel that is sold in the cold climates to aid paraffin seperation.

If not available, use Kerosene, up to a maximum of 50%, put it in the tank first then fill with diesel.

Tip#6

When glowing your car, you can do it several times, my record is 4 cycles.

Tip#7

Wear longjohns.

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Chris Ecklund
98 300 DT

V.Any of you guys remember the old 114 chassis 220diesels? A high school buddy of mine used to have one with a manual transmission. Since the car was a stick shift there was no auto trans shift linkage on the side of the block. So instead of one, I took out two freezeplugs and installed two block heaters in the thing for him. Talk about working good,he would plug it in at night and in the morning when he turned the ign on the temp gauge was already reading about 175 degrees!Of course as soon as it started it would actually cool down,before warming back up. Yeah,it was a rusty old piece, with floorboard holes that let snow blow in as you drove, but man, that sucker always started right up!

[This message has been edited by Alain V. (edited 09-16-1999).]