Why cold and diesels are so much fun! (:

Ahh, what fun I have with my ol' veggie-mobile!
Soooooooo....
This morning I wake up and the temp is supposed to be about 2F.  Well, it turns out to be -6F.  That certainly sounds pretty cold.  Good thing I plugged the car in last night(hint - diesels have engine heaters cause they don't like the cold) and I *think* it was working when I plugged it in last night.  So I head out at a little before 5am and think "hey, this is nice that the wind's not blowing and creating that -20F windchill they were talking about"(and it's always blowing up on the hill).  de-ice the windows (which broke my really solid ice scraper), unplug the block heater and get in.  The car says that the glow plugs(more engine warming devices to help out the old 83' Mercedes diesel) only need 15 seconds to heat up the engine, but I know better and let it go for 30 seconds.  She starts up without much issue at all.  Cool.(literally)
So I start out on my 10-15 minute trip to town.  I make it across the intersection and maybe 1/10 of a mile from the driveway and she sputters.  I think "well this isn't that out of the ordinary, she usually takes a second to get her breath".  But she dies completely.  She almost starts, but won't quite stay running.  Which is especially fun since the exhaust is almost non-existent and makes a good bit of noise and I have conveniently stopped next to a random neighbor who is probably not normally up at 5am.  After a little bit of monkeying she starts again.  I think of backing up towards the house but figure "Nah, this is just cold, she'll only start running better the more I drive".  Well another couple hundred feet down the road and she's all but dead again as I'm coasting down to the next farm.  So she's not interested in running much at this point so I get out with my flashlight and see if I can prime any fuel to the engine.  I'm pumping away, but it doesn't seem to be doing much.  I start using tools and pull off the first connection of fuel and sure enough there is diesel coming out of there(didn't realize it was quite that green though, I thought I had anti-freeze coming out).  I check the other side of the first filter.  Nope, nothing coming out.  "Hmm, ok must be something solidifed in the filter, I'll pop in a new one".  OK, now we have fuel through the filter and I hook it back up.  Well, it kinda starts but again, won't keep running.  OK, must be the other filter is coagulated.  I'll replace it.  Well, I was trying to get it filled with some fuel when I realized that I was not getting filter through that brand new filter now.  So I decided to bypass the first filter.  DId that and it almost started, but just couldn't quite manage.  So by this time I'd gathered a couple visitors from our neighbors farm and one was nice enough to give me a tow back up to our shop.  So I got it in there, put the battery charger on it (gotta love that nice new monster battery.  I could swear I must have drained it and yet it just keeps going) added maybe 50% kerosene and got it running(badly) only stalling once in a while.  By this time it's after 6 and Dad comes out and I borrowed a bottle of diesel fuel 911 service stuff that's basically supposed to make your fuel all happy again.  Poured that in there too and put the first filter back in.  By this time it was almost 6:30, the car was up to normal temperatures, and mostly running, but still not terribly well.  So I headed off to work and it was a fun ride of "ok, there's some power" and then "ok, we've dropped to about 1mph(literally) but we haven't quite stalled yet" and repeat.  Luckily there was only one other car out so I wasn't holding up traffic.

So, anyway it's supposed to get up to almost 20F today and I'm planning on filling up and getting some anti-gel stuff at the truck stop to hopefully avoid this problem in the future.  And I now know that apparently diesel fuel gels up in the filter even if not in the lines.  And apparently even in these cold areas they don't sell diesel that will stay liquid at these temps.  Oh, and -6F isn't bad at all after about 20 minutes of monkeying around.  (:

Ahh, I remember the Subaru that I "just drove" anytime anywhere without any problems.  How fun could that be compared with an old Mercedes?!  HAHA!