The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk How long do you warm up your truck? (or do you?)

Curious to know how long you let your truck warm up before you start to drive. Or maybe you just start it and go. Do you think warming up the truck is as important as it used to be with the development of the various multigrade and high tech oils we now have?

Kurt

I never warm one up unless it is extremly cold out. If you take off & drive easy for thev first 2 miles it is better for the engine then all that idling.

start it and go.Moderate speeds for mile or two,as said above

I am with you fellas, but I have heard the the purpose of the throttle was to hold the truck at a high idle with the choke pushed back in until it was warm enough to drive with no choke.....

Kurt

If the windows are clear about 15-30 seconds, I haven't warmed up any car in 20 years. Other than to start it and let it run while I scrape the ice off the windows and I have to let it run long enough to defog the inside so I don't wreck. Guess that might qualify as warming it up. Clearly if the thing won't run you will have to wait until it does.

....in cooler weather I usually wait about 30 seconds and then as mentioned above, drive it easy for a couple miles as it warms up. Hot weather, 10 seconds and go.

I usually let it run for a little while to help clear the windows, and then just drive it easy for a couple of miles until the temperature comes up. By driving it, you are also warming up the rest of your drive train. Some times we just think about the engine and not the whole vehicle.
Jim

start up back out of the garage, open the gate back past the gate close the gate and we are on the road. I drive slowly for the first couple of miles, but thats it.

Until you get well into the subzero temperatures, warming up the vehicle is mainly to allow for the defroster to be effective. The oil in the engine is doing its job within 10-20 seconds even in normal winter temps.
-20 and below if the vehicle was left outside you need several minutes even with an engine heater to allow a little thawing in the transmission. Drive and shift easy until all the moving parts have a chance to thaw out.
Metal gets very brittle in extreme winter conditions. I saw a hole blown in the bottom of a V-12 diesel you could put a basketball through when we tried to cold start our tanks in Germany one winter.

For my old trucks and motorcycles I like to let them warm up awhile before I use them. Straight weight oils and old tech metallurgy aren't the best recipe for "start it and go" in my way of thinking. I also like the oil to thin out some multi viscosity or straight weight with the rise of temperature to know it's flowing freely through all the galleries and bearings Secondly the cylinder head heats quicker than the block and I like to give the block a chance to catch up a little first before I give the engine any combustion stress keeping the head gasket from taking up the slack between the hotter and colder parts of the motor.

I do warm my truck up! On the coast here, I often have a problem with my carb icing up if I don't, or if I don't plug the bus in.

Also, my bus sits outside in the carport, and I drive it every day, so, when its below about 8. I plug it in. I have a block heater (the cars and trucks came with them up here), and an oil pan heater.

After I start 'er up, I let it warm up till I'm off the choke, which is about 3 minutes or so. By this time, the Southwind heater has started to make nice heat (they advertised hot heat in 90 seconds-its true!!).

I also start out slow for the first mile, driving about 10 miles an hour.

When its below freezing here, I plug the truck in for a few hours.

Mr. Lang,

Our Northern brethren certainly have different challenges than those of us in the sunny South! Tell me, what is a Southwind heater?

The toughest time I had warming up a truck was in Boston around Christmas time in the early 80's. Not enough antifreeze in the radiator, and when I went to start it around 4:00 in the morning there was slush in the radiator. I would start it, let it run for a bit, shut her down, start again and repeat until it thawed out.

But normally here in North Carolina it is rare to get down to 0 C so there is not much warming up to do.

Kurt

Southwind is a gas fired add on heater. In my neck of the woods (Wisconsin) I always warm things up for a few minutes in the winter, in the summer its fire up and go easy for a few miles. Things can be mighty stiff when the temps get to 0 and below.

Don is right, the South-wind is an add-on heater.

It's great, and works just as advertised. The one I've got will keep my whole panel truck at 20 Celsius inside when it's below freezing outside, on low!

Here's Larry's page about them.

http://southwindheater.com/Home.html

Is there any problem with carbon monoxide with these heaters? How do they work exactly?

Kurt

I think they describe the operation in one of the scans on Larry's site, but here's a text version for ya Kurt. There's no danger with the South-wind, as they only burn under a vacuum. They're a pretty neat item, and make allot of heat, about 40,000 btus on high.

The heater exhaust, is connected to the engine intake manifold, the engine vacuum is what "drives" the heater combustion.

The heater draws gasoline from the carb bowl, through a tiny tube, just outside the carb, there is a "jet assembly" where the gasoline is mixed with air, so it is a vapour passing through the heater fuel line, and not just gasoline. At the back of the heater, there is another place where the fuel is mixed with air (also an automatic choke controlled by a bi-metallic strip). The fuel and air mixture (14.7 to 1) then goes into the "oven" where it combusts. There is an electric ignitor in the oven, sort of like a model airplane glow plug. From here, the exhaust gasses are pulled into the engine intake manifold.

If there is a loss of vacuum for any reason, like a line leaking, or you floor it, the heater just goes out. The heater can instantly re-ignite after 15 seconds of no vacuum, but after that time, it cools down, then automatically relights. There is also an automatically reseting overheat shut down as well.

To use the heater, you start the vehicle engine, then pull out the knob. The engine speeds up for a few seconds, as it gets a tiny amount more fuel and air, then slows back down as the heater ignites. This takes about 10 seconds or so. After about 90 seconds, the heater fan starts up, and then in about another 30 or so, the ignitor shuts off.


The operation of the heater is controlled by two sets of points, and three bimetallic strips, one that operates the automatic choke, and the other the points, which controls the ignitor and the fan.

On high, the air coming out of the heater is about 90 Celsius or so, and on low its about 60 Celsius. On low, the heater just gets less vacuum.

I believe that the heater only burns about 250 ml of fuel per hour, so you can't actually detect it when calculating fuel mileage.

After you shut the heater down, the fan stays on until the heater cools down, and then cycles on and off a few times as well, to cool the heater down.

What's funny, is when you restart the heater before it has completely cooled down, is that the fan will come on instantly, and starts blowing heat until the heater cools down enough that the ignitor re-ignites the oven.

I love my heater. I have delightful hot heat, before I'm backed out of the driveway, and my whole uninsulated bus is comfortable.

If it is colder than 40 degrees I always warm mine up for about 5 minutes. It runs a lot better when I can drive with the manual choke off.

Been warming mine up for 2 to 5 minutes, regardless of the time of year.

Once the oil is more or less up to operating temperature & the automatic choke has settled down, it seems to drive much better vs. a shorter warm up time.

My 2 cents.


GL

I have always warmed up my vehicles, new and especially my older ones. They do behave better with warmer fluids. Funny how you first leave you house and can feel the axle slow you down between shift until its warmed up.

I warm my 54 up for at few minutes to get the fluids circulating in the Hyra-Matic transmission...

Any one else with Hyra-Matic or Powerglide transmissions do the same ?

I usually start my car up, buckle up, adjust anything else (radio, mirrors, defroster, etc.) and back out of the drive, drive a block to the stop sign and then go. I just don't tromp on it.

i thought the throttle was for farmers to control how fast the truck idle when crawling in granny gear, so you could walk along side it and toss your bails in the bed or what ever

Usually about 5 minutes in the winter, unless its below -15C (5F), then I'll give it 10.

If its -30C (-20F) or below I'll give it more. In those conditions even with the block heater plugged in, the temp gage stays right at full cold for at least 5 minutes, and then only moves slightly until the engine is fully warmed.

It comes in real handy if you still have the floor starter.

I'll usually let it idle a bit before I take off.

I've got too much carb on it, so, It will stumble and complain until it gets warm and I can get the choke turned off.

Start, check gauges and go.

As long as I have good oil pressure, we're good to go...