A Trucker’s Tale – Cold Cranking

Dec 20, 2023 - 2 years ago

I remember winter as always being a very challenging season regarding the tractors and trailers. In later years, Obie began installing engine block heaters on the trucks, but before the heaters, it was quite a different story, and winter sure as hell was not a fun time of the year.

A Trucker's Tale – Cold Cranking — **1927 A.C. Mack Dump Chain Drive**
Author’s Note: When I needed a background picture of a Mack B61 for the back cover of my book, I contacted Butch Moxley of Moxley Truck Equipment, Street, Maryland, who was more than happy to let me use his B61. In business for over 60 years, the Moxley’s have restored many vintage trucks, and I am proud to include photographs of some of these trucks along with my monthly articles. Photo: Les Taylo.

When it was really cold, the engine’s motor oil became so thick that it was damned-nearly impossible for the batteries to crank the trucks. One of Obie’s answers was the use of homemade heat warmers. He used acetylene cutting torches to cut the tops and bottoms out of 55 gallon drums, and he would make them approximately eight inches deep.

We would pour several inches of diesel fuel, or kerosene, in each “warmer,” and then place a rag into the fuel, making sure a portion of each cloth was sitting above the liquid. Too much rag caused a hotter fire, and a big fire would melt some of the rubber hoses. After sliding the warmer under a truck’s oil pan, we would then wrap a small piece of cloth around one end of either a slender stick, or a bent-straight clothes hanger. When we dipped the small cloth in diesel fuel, we would light it with a match, or lighter, and then light the warmer from this stick.

This method worked extremely well, and it didn’t take but 15 to 20 minutes to heat the oil warm enough for the truck to start. The biggest drawback to using these warmers was the soot that found its way into each truck cab. We quickly learned to take a hot, wet, soapy rag with us when we jumped up into each truck to start it, and Obie’s drivers were very appreciative we cleaned before they arrived to leave for their trips.

Obie had two barns on his farm. The upper barn was used for hay and horses. The lower barn, formerly a working dairy barn, had been converted into a full-fledged repair facility, including a 14 foot-high door for the tractors and trailers. When he owned just a few tractors, they were all parked at the lower barn, which was on level ground, and this made it easy to use the truck warmers. As the business grew, most of the tractors were parked up “on the hill.” The hill, an extension of Obie’s driveway, was four to five acres of grass and hard-packed clay, which allowed ample parking for all equipment. When hard rain gouged ruts in the clay, we would fill them with cinders from Obie’s coal-fired furnace. The cinders didn’t last too long, but until rains washed them away, at least the cinders provided some added traction to the slick red clay. I mention the hill because it was one of our most successful methods of cranking the tractors, especially if a truck’s batteries were dead.

You older truckers will remember some tractors were equipped with air starters. These starters worked well when the air pressure didn’t leak out of the reserve tank, but 50 to 60 years ago, small-scale trucking hardly ever ran smoothly, and air-leaks were a common occurrence. When a truck would not start because the compressed air had leaked from the tank, we employed one of two different methods of cranking the engine. The first was to pull another tractor close enough to hook both tractors glad-hands together. Like sharing the air from your diving tank with someone who has lost their oxygen, most of the time, this would provide enough air for the air starter to do its job. When this air-to-air method proved unsuccessful, another method was employed.

When each tractor was parked on the hill, it was standard practice, even though each tractor was equipped with pull-up parking brakes, to place the gearshift in reverse before shutting down the tractor. When a truck would not start, our second method was to use “the hill.” Before getting into the tractor, we always sprayed a shot of ether directly into the air cleaner, or into the air-intake tube usually located on the opposite side from the muffler/stack on the back of each truck cab. Ether evaporated very quickly, so we would jump back in the truck, depress the clutch, release the parking brake, and as quickly as possible, pull the left gear shift out of reverse and work it into a high gear, preferably sixth or eighth. Most of these early tractors had two-stick duplex transmissions, and it was also standard practice to park each tractor with the high/low range stick, the right one, in the high-gear position.

After gaining some speed down the hill, we would let out the clutch, and usually the tractor would start after a few engine revolutions. I say usually, because if the hill was too muddy, or snow-covered, we would sometimes travel half-way down Obie’s driveway before we gained enough traction to turn over the engine.

The trick, when using “the hill” as your starter, was to build-up enough air pressure for the air brakes to function. You needed the brakes to work properly because of the fairly busy country road at the end of the driveway. “Scared shitless” is the best way to describe the feeling of coming most of the way down the driveway with no brakes. Fortunately, we had also “scared shitless” most of the neighborhood’s drivers over the years, so they knew to be very alert when they saw a tractor bobtailing down Obie’s driveway, especially during the winter months. If the truck failed to start, it would stop itself if you left it in gear. We would give it another “good” shot of ether, and after checking for traffic, we would roll the tractor out of the driveway onto a paved secondary road. The road had enough “downhill” to let you build-up enough speed to crank the truck. Thank goodness there were never any accidents between the neighbor’s cars and Obie’s trucks.

Modern truck parking and braking systems make it impossible to crank a tractor by rolling it down an incline. This tactic is also unnecessary because present-day engines start easily in even the harshest, coldest weather. We older drivers have graphic memories, not all wonderful, of having been greeted by the sound of our truck engines barely turning over when we needed for them to start. If we knew the truck was not likely to start, we always tried to park on a downslope, but driving through flat country usually made this impossible, so if your truck wouldn’t start, you either had to ask another driver to pull your rig with a chain or call someone for service. I don’t remember too many drivers pitching fits, or raising hell, when these events occurred. It was just how things were back then, and you eventually got your truck started and went on about your business.

Ed Miller has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in the trucking industry. Today, he is a part-time tour bus driver, published author of “A Trucker’s Tale” and regular contributor to Supply Post. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.