Here comes winter...

well, not yet really, but in a few months, it will be pretty cold. Now, cold to me (here in Texas) is like 30-35 degrees. What do I need to do to make sure my car drives in the mornings when I get up? I know my old truck HATED driving in the cold, and would die at red lights, stop signs, school zones lol. Any tips?

make shure your choke works, verify you have a 180* T stat, and it should do ok, providing the log is still water heated ( heat intake air ). if ur carb ices up. maby some 12v heating coils wrapping the carb. can get them from napa.

a big piece of cardboard in front of the radiator plus some extra time warming up the motor in the morning, or at least before you drive off when its cold outside.
Really, I'd imagine a motor would like breathing cold air. I know winter time gave my engines a bit more pep- once they were warmed up of course. Once the season / weather started changing, I also readjusted the carb, and insured the car was still timed right and yes i did it about 4 times a year.

(PS, you can take the cardboard out from in front of the radiator once the engine is warmed up )

Put a bottle of ISO Heet in the tank each time you fill up. Also, David and Dennis correct me if I'm wrong but on the side of the carb there should be some sort of idle circuit thingy with 2 settings, low and high, iirc low is for high altitude and/or below 50deg F

Keep your gas tank full. IF you are really worried, get a dipstick heater; a little electric probe. It plugs into a wall socket with an extension cord and goes down the dipstick shaft and to keep the oil warm for easier starts.

when I lived in minnesota,,,I'd cover approx 1/2 the radiator with cardboard,,,( constant minus temps),,,,,used a inline tank heater at night to heat radiator and block,,,always thought/heard that the dipstick heaters broke the oil down,,,,don't know if that's true or not,,but no one heard of anti-freeze breaking down,,,,never found a fix for square tires though,,used multi visco oil so the starter won't kill the battery from trying to turn over asphalt,,,,,using heat helps,,if you drive everyday then I'd say based on expericence everyother week

Howdy MSRs and all:

I'm not sure if 30 - 35 degrees is "Cold". I guess it is all relative.

What you want is to get as quick an engine warm-up as possible. Have at least a 180 thermostat. Make sure your carbs accelerator pump is correctly set, as Blueroo pointed out. Make sure your accelerator pump and choke are properly set. On the choke,verify opening rate and fast idle cam settings to be correct. Don't rev a cold engine or let it idle. Drive as soon as you start-up. Engines warm up faster and more efficiently when under load. You want the choke to be fully open within 10 minutes.

Make sure your ignition is in tip-top shape. You might want to close the sparkplug gap slightly for winter driving- maybe back to stock setting of .035".
You can likely use more initial advalce safely in the winter too.

If you have carb heat, winter is the time to use it. We used to plumb around the carb water heater in the summer and plumb it back in come winter.

If you do put cardboard in front of your radiator, cut a hole in the center, corresponding with the center of the fan. Without the hole you'll put a strain on the fan shaft to pull rignt through the radiator. Watch you temp guage closely once the engine warms up to avoid overheating.

Review all the previous suggestions. They're all good. Cold weather makes everything stiffer, slower, and weaker- kinda like me.

Adios, David

8) if you havent already, install a good electronic ignition system as well. you need good spark energy to light off a cold engine.