My truck is frozen; advice?

Four hour thaw out in a shop should do the trick.

 

This happened to me yesterday morning during that cold blast in the Northeast. I was near the NY PA line on I 84. Made the brilliant decision to sleep at one of those pull offs with no facilities because the truckstops were full and no parking at shipper. Temps dropped below zero with howling wind chills near -20. I added what I thought was a generous dose of antigel about 3 hours prior.

Truck has an exhaust leak under the hood which typically isn't a problem but I don't like to sleep idling because sometimes it does get some in the cab sitting still. Bunk heater on max and at 4AM low voltage alarm. Fired up with a slight hesitation but idled for over an hour.

At 9AM I started it again expecting things to be dandy only to have it die about 20 seconds later. Tried a couple more times. No luck. Reefer struggled and took 3 tries before it stayed on. Made a road call, they came with that bullet heater and some 911. 1 hour and 500 bucks later I was going. Oh and the battery got low again trying to start it so I froze my pecker off for 3 hours waiting for the roadcall without the bunk heater. I think the water icing in my fuel lines and filter is what really did me in.

 

Yet another example NOT to turn off truck in the super cold.

 

Yeah I learned my lesson, thought the antigel would prevent problems. Guess it's better to be safe than sorry.

 

We had a contractor that had a telehandler that was balky starting at -20 this past week. I grabbed a regular garden hose and poured water over the engine and fuel system for about 20 minutes. Put cables on the battery, and she fired right up.

Made a bit of a mess under the thing, but not as bad as when we did this to get an excavator started and froze the tracks to the ground..... LOL.

 

Next time:

1) Overtreat
2) Don't use cheap fuel, untrustable source
3) Park in cover, non windy area between trucks

4) If possible don't shut engine off.

4b) Have a blowtorch and flashlight in the truck. Also toolbox.

 

It's just not the fuel everything becomes more difficult in the super cold. Like batteries also struggle for example.

 

Yep. A charger hooked to them does so much good.