cold engine starting suggestions

[bob swanson]

I am currently dry camping in Southern Illinois for the last 3 weeks.  Everything has been great, but the weather has really turned and time to head south.
My 6v92 will not turn more than 3 or 4 times before the juice runs out.  I wait and recharge and turn on the boost from the house batteries.  The battery is charged to 13.4 volts.  Also, running the engine heater for 6 hours.  But still no go.  Any suggestions?  The temp did not get over 37 today.  The motor cranked two days ago, but the temp was about 50 degrees.  Should I just wait out this cold spell?  I have plenty of beer, propane and brats to hold me over a week or two.   

Best regards,
Bob
94 Foretravel U300 Honda Element 05 Malaguti
DD 6v92

[redbus]

Put A heat lamp under the oil pan tonight. That should warm up the oil a bit and help out the starter. If that doesnt help it sounds like you might have a weak starter or batterys.

[makemineatwostroke]

Bob when you say battery is there just 1 starting battery if so what size sounds like you don't have enough battery or a bad one.I don't know how many house batteries are on you rig but if there is only 2 you are not getting much help from the house batteries with the undersize cables used on most class a motorhomes.Bob you can not check a battery with a volt meter. A lawn mower battery will show 13.4 but is not going to start your bus FWIW.

[Dallas]

Bob, Where are you in Southern Illinois?

Sounds like has already been mentioned, you either have a bad battery or it's quite possible you have a bad connection.

I just started my Fishbowl and it hasn't been started for a month or so. No engine heater, no battery charger, no ether. Temp is in the middle 30's.

If you need an ear, you can call me at 843.496.9176 tomorrow. I'm in NW Tennessee/ SW Kentucky.

Good luck,
Dallas

[Busted Knuckle]

Bob, Where are you in Southern Illinois?

Sounds like has already been mentioned, you either have a bad battery or it's quite possible you have a bad connection.

I just started my Fishbowl and it hasn't been started for a month or so. No engine heater, no battery charger, no ether. Temp is in the middle 30's.

If you need an ear, you can call me at 843.496.9176 tomorrow. I'm in NW Tennessee/ SW Kentucky.

Good luck,
Dallas

Bob,
As Dallas pointed out we are at the corner of NW TN/SW KY where IL, MO, KY, & TN all meet! Chance are we are not far from you. Let us know where you are maybe we could swing over and help ya out! Shoot if we can't get it started we still like beer & brats! LOL!
  BK 

[TomC]

If you're in cold weather you should have 4 size 31 batteries for around 3600 cold cranking amps.  Considering the starter takes about 2000 amps, 4 batteries would give you sufficient cranking time to build up the heat in the engine to start it.
I started my old 8V-92TA in -20 weather-it cranked slowly, but with a couple of shots of ether, got it going.  Was luck I had treated the fuel with water emulsing treatment on the previous fill up-so my fuel did not gell up.  Good Luck, TomC

[DrivingMissLazy]

How long are you wanting for the batteries to recharge? Depending on the battery charger it will take several hours or overnight for them to get back up to where they should be. The voltage really means nothing as far as the state of charge is concerned.

Richard

[BJ]

give if a one second shop of starting fluid. then I would replace the battery/s...

[Glenn MC9]

One thing that I'd check is the block heater. After it's been plugged up for a while, feel around where it screws into the block and make sure that it's warm.   

Also, I've found that the charging time for your batteries is determined by their condition. I've had one battery to charge in 4-5 hours and the other one take 6-7 hours.

Good luck.

Glenn

[John Z]

Glenn, you have reminded me of something i found after installing my block heater last year. It did not work the first time i tried it. After spending several minutes checking things, i found that the contacts inside the plug that goes into the block heater itself, were coated with a thin layer of the rubber material used to mold the cord. After scraping those contacts a little bit, it has worked well!

The same sort of thing happened about 20 years ago. I had a really nice old '60 Dodge with a big block 318. I had recently installed a block heater in it but had not had a chance to try it out. The forecast was for extreme cold so i plugged my new block heater into a nice new heavy cold weather extension cord, and went to bed. In the morning at -30 the Dodge started, but i was not impressed with the effort it took to turn it over etc. I found out that evening the female end of the extension cord had a thin layer of the material used to make the cord, which insulated it. That poor old Dodge had fired up on its own after sitting out all night!

[plyonsMC9]

Bob - did you ever get the bus started?  How did this turn out?  We live in northern Illinois, and the most effective way I've seen to cold start the bus is snipped from an earlier post:

Crank for 3 seconds, then wait 20-30 seconds, and try again. During the wait the heat created from the inital crank gets distributed in the cylinders, making the next try easier.  It is also a lot easier on the batteries.  It also keeps you from dumping a ton of fuel into the cyclinders, so the smoke on start up is greatly reduced.  ---

Tho', long term, fixing my block heater is the direction I'm heading in addition to the above tip.

Hope this helps,
Phil

PS - Welcome to the board!!!

[GM0406]

I started my 8V71 TA this morning here in San Jose California.  Heck I had trouble here because I fogot to use my shim for the throttle.  As long as I get back there and do that, she starts right away no matter what the temp is here.  But if I foget, I get a nice slowly moving pillar of smoke that rises from the tailpipe outlet looking like I have serious problems to anyone who might observe it!!  For some reason these big turkeys need air when they start!  My 671 has a manual throttle to deal with this situation.  But none on the 8V71.  I think the person who knew what to do for calling out manual throttles on these coaches was let go or fired before 1963 and after 1957.  A lot of you might have a lot less problems if you had a maual throttle to pull to start these things.  I have heard that there is a fast idle gizmo.  But what good is that if it takes air to activate and you need it when there is no air.  Think this over and try to give your hard starting coach more air.  Who knows?  It might start.  FWIW  Bill T.