The Ford Barn - View Single Post - How have you kept your engine warm at night outside?

scooder · 02-11-2014, 07:37 AM

Right, firstly when you use your 12volt battery for jumping, how are you connecting this to your car? In your weak spark situation I would turn the ignition on then bang the 12 volts straight to earth and the starter. This way your getting full 6volt to your ignition system. Worth a go?
Secondly, These old Ford V8's have a well deserved good reputation of being able to start in a situation that most others won't, extreme cold being one if them. Walt for one mentioned this. (these are in the day's before swapping out points for electronic upgrades? And such) yours is showing a week spark at this temperature, it would be prudent to find out why. The extreme cold IS showing a weakness somewhere in your ignition system. (if other Ford V8's start at this temp, so should yours, if all the components are up to spec) I would suggest going through the ignition system step by step (ignoring the its new so must be good idea) in an open minded fashion. All of it including the ignition switch. I like the earlier suggestion of freezing the coil and seeing what that does on another wise UN frozen engine. I'm not saying that skips coil is no good, I rebuild distributors and carbs, I test these on a running engine and scope before they are sent out, but I don't freeze test them. You can't test for all scenarios most but not all. But this freezing the coil and test then condenser and test, is a systematic test. Pretty sure you'll find the weak part.
If you find that the coil is the part that don't like the real cold, take this off overnight to keep some warm in him, and refit and go in the morning.
Again just to reiterate, I'm using the coil as an example, not saying skips coils are no good,from what I can tell their pretty much the best there is.
And the importance of an open minded approach, "it's to cold" is no good when comparable stuff will fire and run at the same temperature.
Martin.

02-11-2014, 07:37 AM	#67
scooder Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 2,593	Re: How have you kept your engine warm at night outside? Right, firstly when you use your 12volt battery for jumping, how are you connecting this to your car? In your weak spark situation I would turn the ignition on then bang the 12 volts straight to earth and the starter. This way your getting full 6volt to your ignition system. Worth a go? Secondly, These old Ford V8's have a well deserved good reputation of being able to start in a situation that most others won't, extreme cold being one if them. Walt for one mentioned this. (these are in the day's before swapping out points for electronic upgrades? And such) yours is showing a week spark at this temperature, it would be prudent to find out why. The extreme cold IS showing a weakness somewhere in your ignition system. (if other Ford V8's start at this temp, so should yours, if all the components are up to spec) I would suggest going through the ignition system step by step (ignoring the its new so must be good idea) in an open minded fashion. All of it including the ignition switch. I like the earlier suggestion of freezing the coil and seeing what that does on another wise UN frozen engine. I'm not saying that skips coil is no good, I rebuild distributors and carbs, I test these on a running engine and scope before they are sent out, but I don't freeze test them. You can't test for all scenarios most but not all. But this freezing the coil and test then condenser and test, is a systematic test. Pretty sure you'll find the weak part. If you find that the coil is the part that don't like the real cold, take this off overnight to keep some warm in him, and refit and go in the morning. Again just to reiterate, I'm using the coil as an example, not saying skips coils are no good,from what I can tell their pretty much the best there is. And the importance of an open minded approach, "it's to cold" is no good when comparable stuff will fire and run at the same temperature. Martin.