I have a late 60s ford 4500 industrial that lives under a tarp outside. As everyone is probably aware weve had a cold snap in pennsylvania with ambient temp just above zero and wind chill around -10. I just went out to fire the old girl up and itll barely crank. I had just had the battery inside charging overnight, i cleaned the positive battery terminal and wire ends, pulled the cable off and took the clamp off the positive cable and cleaned the exposed wire and the clamp and the eye on the starter side. I know its cold for it but its got 15w40 in it. Could the 15w40 be making it hard to crank? In normal summer/fall temps it cranks just fine, but im thinking at these temps the oil is more like tar causing the slow crank. Im trying to borrow a forced air heater from work to get some heat on it to thin the oil some. Thanks!
Does it have a coolant/block heater.? That's #1 for starting in cold temps. Get the coolant warm and the block and oil will come along. Engine oil isn't probably as much of a problem as the cold hydraulic oil. Get a magnet heater and put it on the hydraulic tank and get that warm too. If that doesn't get it going, tarp and torpedo heater.
We have a good discussion about this very topic happening now. HeavyEquipmentForums
It does have a block heater but it doesnt seem to work. My pickup died on me 2x this week due to gelled fuel that i thought i had put schaeffers antigel additive in. I ended up borrowing a forced air heater from work and let it blow on them for awhile.
When is the last time you drained the fuel bowl or changed the filter?
Im not sure on the backhoe, but it doesnt have many hours on a filter change. After i got it warm it fired almost instantly. The pickup, however, i drained the seperator weds when i changed filters after it initiallly died on me, and filters are done every other oil change and i drain the seperator once a month.
Sounds like you did your due diligence. For some reason antigel additive doesn't seem help if there's a lot of water in the separator.
The john deere with the yanmar kept right on trucking.
Some vehicles/machines seem to be more prone to gelling than others.