Heating hydraulic fluid

I am just curious if anyone heats the hydraulic fluid on there N tractors in the winter. I do run the heavier fluid and really have not used it much for snow removal since I have owned it but thinking that is about to change. I have the wheel chains on it but it takes for ever for the fluid to get warm enough to raise and lower it with any speed at all. I was thinking of getting another magnetic heater for the hydraulic sump. Thoughts?

Can't hurt anything.

Oil dilution

Back when I was in the Air Force in the mid fifties we used oil dilution in the great radial engines on the era so that they could be started on
cold mornings.

This was accomplished by using a switch on the aircrafts flight engineer?s panel. The flight engineer would hold the oil dilution switch on for a
predetermined time so that aviation gasoline could be injected directly into the running radial engine crankcase. These engines were of the dry sump
type and did not hold reserve oil in the crankcase but rather in a 80 gallon tank that was vented to the atmosphere.

By injecting gasoline into the crankcase as the engine was being shut down the residual oil in the crankcase was diluted to a very thin consistency.

If the engine was not shut down in anticipation of a cold morning start then the engine starter and all the power units on the base could not start
these huge engines. Here we are talking anywhere from 3350 cubic inches on one engine to 4360 cubic inches on one engine.

Dilute the engine when shut down start the next cold morning!

The story goes according to some of the old WW2 men that were still in the AF at this time that a mechanic over in England who was having a heck of
time starting the engines on his squadrons planes in the cold damp mornings came up with the idea to pour gasoline into the crankcase after the
engine was shut down and then restart and run for a couple of minutes to mix the oil and gasoline. The CO noticed that his planes had no problem at
all being started in the morning so he called the Sgt. In and asked him what his secret procedure was.

When the Sgt told his what he had been doing the CO hit the ceiling and had the Sgt busted. After all he told him, gasoline is very combustible! The
Sgt told him it was while in the gas tank too. What was he going to do about that? No answer to that question!

A couple of months later when the weather really got cold and nothing could be got up and going unless heaters were used all night on the engines he
called the private back in and re-instated his rank with back pay and had him go out and instruct all the mechanics on the base to begin his oil
dilution process when a cold morning was in the forecast.

He was promoted and given a citation after the invasion of Normandy.

This is a true story.

Zane

The Oil Dilution (as described below for radial engines) was also a factory option, IIRC, on the Cessna 180s/ 185s and perhaps others...

What ISN'T mentioned below is that normal aircraft ENGINE oil temperatures soon evaporated off the AvGas... to add this to a hydraulic is a different breed of cat... Does your hydraulic system warm enough to do this? Probably not, even with several hours of winter use...

If a person is too cheap to service the proper grade of hydraulic oil... (you can save it from season to season...) what other corners are being cut to save pennies?

Wow Deuy nice zing. Once it gets warmed up it works fine, don't think any other answer to you is justified.

Heat is good when it is winter and real cold. I wasted fuel but having the pump hold up the blade while it warms up good helps on the fluid. I used to plug in the 8N and TO30 when it dropped into the teens to run it for plowing snow. Just so much easier to work things warmed up to operating temps. Never changed fluids to meet temps here because super cold is only a few days of the year. I run 30wt synthetic oil all year long in my almost 30 year old 5 HP Air compressor now and it starts just fine in the low teens when before I had to heat the crank case just to start the compressor!

(quoted from post at 14:12:01 02/12/18) I am just curious if anyone heats the hydraulic fluid on there N tractors in the winter. I do run the heavier fluid and really have not used it much for snow removal since I have owned it but thinking that is about to change. I have the wheel chains on it but it takes for ever for the fluid to get warm enough to raise and lower it with any speed at all. I was thinking of getting another magnetic heater for the hydraulic sump. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Why not use an oil suited to the temperatures?

TOH

The OldHokie, like I said, I haven't used it much for blading in the winter but there is about 4-6 times a winter where I could use it taking roughly 30 minutes a time. The rest of its uses the rest of the years tallies up much more than that. Don't know if it is worth putting a lighter weight oil in for 2 to 3 hours of work total. I was just thinking that once it gets warmed up it works good, didn't know if it was a option to heat it up prior to using it using the heavier oil. Just tossing ideas around, thanks.

I have not heated mine so I can't answer your question directly.
I run UTF that meets the Ford M2C134D specification year around.
Works fine in the summer as well as the winter. No swapping.
Is there a reason you don't want to use that type of fluid?
Seems like the cost of a heater and the electricity to run it might
cost more than the oil change. It's about $40 for 5 gallons here.
Might save you some trouble.

(quoted from post at 20:10:44 02/12/18) I have not heated mine so I can't answer your question directly.
I run UTF that meets the Ford M2C134D specification year around.
Works fine in the summer as well as the winter. No swapping.
Is there a reason you don't want to use that type of fluid?
Seems like the cost of a heater and the electricity to run it might
cost more than the oil change. It's about $40 for 5 gallons here.
Might save you some trouble.

Click to expand...

have only heated the Coolant in my tractors where I live. Used to keep a light bulb near my back/up generator crank case on real cold bad nights. To hard to crank by hand when cold. Now I have a 2 cylinder Onan 1800 RPM electric start. Older one but well made no electronics to speak of.

Probably any kind of heat you could add might help. I know the hydraulic oil can be like molasses until it warms up in the winter. Another option might be, as Royse sez, run the ford spec UTF
for your cold winter months and save the old heavy weight oil and switch it back to the heavy weight when it warms up. If you have any water contamination, once drained and store in a 5
gallon container, during the winter months once it's settled the water will separated and settle on the bottom and freeze and good oil could than be poured off. Switch back and forth would be
a bit of a pain but it is another option. Oil should be changed about every 600 hours or so But I've seen oil in these old N's that has been changed in probably 30 yrs.

I will have to look into the UTF, I am pretty sure our locally farm supply store handles it, Thanks for the replies.

(quoted from post at 20:00:16 02/12/18) The OldHokie, like I said, I haven't used it much for blading in the winter but there is about 4-6 times a winter where I could use it taking roughly 30 minutes a time. The rest of its uses the rest of the years tallies up much more than that. Don't know if it is worth putting a lighter weight oil in for 2 to 3 hours of work total. I was just thinking that once it gets warmed up it works good, didn't know if it was a option to heat it up prior to using it using the heavier oil. Just tossing ideas around, thanks.

Click to expand...

I was suggesting you switch to UTF. It is an "all-season" lubricant and in most climates can be used year round.

TOH

I always use Tractor supply
Traveller Brand
Ford all mineral SAE 90
have been for years
works good summer or winter.

(quoted from post at 14:02:36 02/13/18) I always use Tractor supply
Traveller Brand
Ford all mineral SAE 90
have been for years
works good summer or winter.

Click to expand...

How cold does it get during the winter where you live? It gets cold enough around here that if you have 90w in the transmission it will kill the engine when you let the clutch out in neutral. I run trans/hydraulic fluid in my main tractor year round.

I have use hog pans setting on concrete blocks and filled with charcoal, then wrap the tractor(or truck) with a tarp.

Yea it gets pretty cold here, last weekend it was a low of -10. I had to take it out to get some corn it fired up ok but yea I had to hold the clutch in for several minutes and let the motor warm up enough to let the clutch out. The charcoal trick, a trucker friend of mine told me that is what his dad did to warm up his truck in the old days.

The TSC brand SAE 90 gets slow and awfully thick in cold parts of a central Texas winter.

I am about 120 miles NW of Galveston so the Gulf acts as a blanket for us most of the time. In cold weather typical highs are in the upper 30s or 40s; the lows would be in the mid-20s. Even on an average winter day, say 60*, the hydraulics are slow with that thick oil.

In NW Iowa, I would go to the UTF that the others are recommending.

I think that is what I am going to do, our weather and Royce's weather would be pretty similar so I then to could run it year around. Thanks

Zane,
My dad was in the Air Force in the early fifties. He was a radar technician stationed at Larson air field near Portland, OR.