BRRRRRRRR........

[Dino]

Sounds like one or both of your batteries are on their way out. Go to a shop and they get them to fully charge the batteries and then load test them (seperately) and if either of them is weak it will need replacing. The cold will make the oil thicker and the cylinders tighter so the amount of power required to turn the engine is much greater.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Hey fellas

I wonder if you can help me re: cold starting my Delica (L300).

I recently went skiing up at Big White, B.C. My van was parked outside in no more than about -10, with a bit of snow for four days. When I went to leave, the battery was pretty weak and after a few good tries it was dead. BCAA came & it took two sets of leads to the dual battery for about 20 mins to get her started again. I had anti-gelling agent in the deisel & heated up the glow plugs twice first.

Basically, I was wondering what you guys would do to avoid this? I'm in Vancouver so really didn't want a block heater or battery heater for the odd ski trip. I'm not from Canada originally so all this cold-start business is very unfamiliar territory...

Could it be as simple as getting a new battery?

Also has anyone installed a glow plug control unit like this? What's the deal with these? http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/bnc/p ... 41434.html

Much appreciated!

Diesel motors require many amperes of power to turn over due to the compression ratio (Starwagons: 21/1). If you have the dual batteries in parallel Winter package then you should start without issue. If the batteries have Japanese writing on them then they are probably really old and lacking in the ampere department, get them checked to see if they still have the amps. Cold is the great destroyer of weak batteries. I've cold started at -25 like a summer day. I get my batteries at Edmonds Batteries, in Burnaby.

Falco.