"Karl Townsend" wrote in message
anews.com...

That would be great on the mower. I occasionally use the 4WD truck and
the
tractor with front end loader during the winter but a freezing engine
seems to take a good charge to get running. I like the idea of sealed
automatic marine chargers myself but they seem to be on the expensive
side. That is probably the main reason I'm considering an enclosure for
chargers and running cords for the charging. I'm hoping extended leads
will work OK with low current maintenance charging.

My SOP on winter machine that are a bit old:
Hook up engine block heater wait 30 minutes
Hook up large charger, set to 40 amp.
Put in starting ether.
Hit glow plug heater.
Starts right up even at -40.

Now, i did have an old car that wouldn't start at -50 with this treatment.
So, I lifted car with floor jack and stuck the 500,000 BTU knipco under.
20 minutes later i was on my way.

Karl


Sounds like your SOP ought to work well. My truck has a block heater, I'm
not sure if it's on all the time it's plugged in or if it has a thermostat.
Most days I take my ~ 35MPG car and only take a truck if I need to haul
something or it's bad weather needing the 4X4 (sometimes not even once a
year). Usually the problem is that I wake up and find out if I need the
truck or not. The last time that happened, the truck didn't have enough
charge in the batteries to get it started, I plugged in the block heater and
the charger, got it started a couple hours later. This year I hope to
improve the situation by keeping the batteries charged and turning on the
block heater if snow/ice is in the forecast.

RogerN