double check your block heater to make sure its working.whens its plugged in you should be able to hear the coolant boiling if you listen carefully with the hood raised of course.or check the plug with an ohm meter.you should see approx 35 ohms.if not the plug could be shot,cut it off and replace with industrial grade

[QUOTE=psfred]

An alternative is to build a charcoal briquet (not wood!) fire on a piece of sheet metal and slide it under the oil pan.


How long before the oil is medium rare ?

Well,
After 3 days of being completely cold soaked, I decided to bring in the big guns. I called an old timer friend, MB mechanic for 35 years, currently one of Greyhound's chief mechanics. We brought my battery inside for a while and gave it a 12v10a charge. 2 hours later, we put it back in the car. In the mean time, I had positioned an portable electric element stove underneath the crank case. The smell was foul, however, it did warm the oil up a fair bit. Mother nature cooperated too, bringing the temp up to a balmy -5C. I can't tell you how warm -5 feels after -35, I was outside in just a long sleeved shirt.
Well, we installed the battery and hooked heavy duty cables up to my friends 190 diesel. As I cranked her over, Cyril shot a blast of ether into the filter housing. We repeated that process about 10 times, then we decided to warm up in his running car. We let my battery charge for another 15 minutes or so. Then Cyril got in my car and cranked it over. As the cranking slowed down, he shouted for me to throw in a shot of ether. I did and the engine sped up and finally roared to life. He squeezed the throttle for a full 5 minutes.

Moral of the story: the block heater requires BOTH ends to be plugged in (go figure), and -35 requires additional considerations (synthetic, battery heater, crank case heater).

-Joey

Man, that was a ton of effort to get this thing running at -5C. I am suspect that you have other troubles other than your block heater being unplugged. Well, you'll be able to see this weekend, as it's supposed to be in the -30's again.

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

I love it
Be very careful with feeding the engine with ether.
Ether has the very habit of digging some prestty nasty holes in pistons.

It also reeks havoc on glow plugs. It can also cause the block to crack, pistons to crack, connecting rods to break because (in cases of too much ether used) it becomes a non-moving obstruction at the top of the cylinder. I found this out the hard way on an Olds diesel that I had years ago.

As the previous threads said. DON'T USE ETHER IN A DIESEL ENGINE. Not even a bit, not even as a last resort. Its worse than playing Russian roulette. The odds of causing massive engine damage are stacked against you.

You may, or may not, have escaped its destructive effects this time. The short and/or long term effects of having used it may yet be determined.

Phil

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'95 E300 Diesel, 264,000 Miles. [Sold it]

Yes, I agree. I was able to start my car yesterday after soaking it at -10C for 7 hours. It was a little sluggish, and needed about 30 seconds to start firing (with a 617.952, do not touch the accellerator!). I am using a biodiesel 40% blend, dino 15W40 oil, and good glow plugs. I usually use a block heater, and even at -20C (coldest we've really seen this winter so far) it starts immediately when it's been plugged in for 2 hours or so.

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'83 240D with 617.952 and 2.88
'01 VW Beetle TDI
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD
'89 Toyota 4x4, needs 2L-T
'78 280Z with L28ET - 12.86@110
Oil Burner Kartel #35

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...oD/bioclip.jpg