Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightcrawler®
I imagine that the heavy equipment has some heavy duty engine heaters
that require an APU to fire up. I cannot fathom trying to fire up
an engine that was left overnight in sub-zero temps. I hear that any
equipment left for an amount of time out there needs to be towed and
heated up before they can be re-started.
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I suppose that if the equipment can be moved to a warmer location, that'd be the way to go, but often the equipment can't really be moved. For example, the diesel engines in a mining drag line or oil drilling rig. You can't move the diesel engine in an oil drilling rig without moving the rig, and it takes several days to set up the rig and take it down. Having to do all that just because an engine won't start isn't economic when you have to pay the crew a daily wage even when they're not working.
In those cases, there are still ways to start cold diesel engines. I've seen one case where you can set up quick connect fittings (like the kind on compressed air lines) on the engine of a pick up truck and the engine of a bull dozer (for example). You connect the pick-up truck's engine to the bulldozer engine with hoses so that hot engine oil from the pick up truck's engine flows through the engine of the bulldozer. After a while, all of the oil in both engines is hot, and the bulldozer will be much easier to start.
On really large diesel engines, like the diesel engine in a locomotive, they will typically use an electrically powered coolant preheater. The coolant preheater is entirely electric and both heats and pumps hot coolant through the diesel engines's water jacket, thereby warming up the entire engine. If the engine can't be brought to the preheater, the preheater can be brought to the engine, but in that case you also need to take along a gasoline powered generator to provide the electrical power the preheater needs.
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