I'm certainly not wanting to spread bad or dangerous advice. It's been getting pretty cold up here at nights lately. When it's real cold (like 20 deg) - I can start the engine, but it takes a lot of cranking and leaves me totally 'wiped out'... I suspect if it got colder (which it will)... perhaps 0 deg, it would be impossible without either heating the intake, installing a glow plug.. or something like that.
My neighbor up the hill charges his batteries with a single cylender Volvo diesel hooked to a generator. His simply wont start below about 50 deg (my Listeroid starts on the 1st crank at 50 deg). He tells me that the 'easy' way is a little ether (starting fluid). Almost everyone else tells me thats 'crazy'... it could damage the engine, it could kick back.
At any rate, sometimes 1st thing in the morning I have pretty limited patience. We use the Lister to pump water into our cistern from a deep well (we've got a 240VAC well pump). It's pretty common, that when the girls wake up here we run out of water (they use lots first thing in the morning) and I have to start the generator (often times before my 1st cup of coffee).
For about 2 weeks now, I've followed Tim's advice and used just a 'touch' of ether. By 'touch' I mean... the very smallest amount that you can actually get out of the can - I spray it for a small fraction of a second. And.. so far, no matter how cold it is - it always starts on the first crank and it's never seemed the least bit inclined to kick back.
Perhaps I'm crazy... but it sure seems to work nicely!
