[Old Henry]

Just a little update on the cold start attempts for anyone who cares.
Last night the low was predicted to be 17°, the exact same average low on Valentine's day at Bryce Canyon and the exact temperature I couldn't start the engine in Milford a month ago, so I decided to give my magnetic oil pan heater a try. Left Old Henry out in the driveway all night with the 200 watt heater on the oil pan. This morning it was exactly 17° outside. Reached under to make sure the heater had worked and the heater was warm but the oil pan wasn't very warm. Anyway, tried starting the car and it wouldn't even turn over. I'd intentionally not charged the battery all night just to see if the heater by itself would do the trick. It didn't really make any difference so I then charged the battery at 15 amps for an hour and tried it again. It turned over very slowly but would not start. Fortunately my driveway slopes toward the street that then slopes downhill so when my battery won't start the car I just coast backward down the driveway and out into the street and up as far as it will coast backward then forward down the street to start. Even then the engine was so hard to turn over that it almost stopped the car on the hill in 2nd gear and it took several hundred feet before the engine started and then it ran really rough until warmed up. So, I went straight to Jiffy Lube and had them drain the S.A.E. 40 oil out and put 10W-30 in. Tonight, if it's cold enough, I'll leave the car out and try starting it in the morning with nothing but the thinner oil to make a difference. If that doesn't work, I'll charge the battery for an hour to see if that works. If not, I'm getting the larger 300 watt engine heater today that I will then put on for an hour it to see if that gets it started.

Something's got to work to get this thing started at 17°. I'll find out what it is before Valentine's Day.