Re: Teflon coating

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Ken J Hitchcox wrote:

> Question for you cold country folks. Did you teflon coat your engine
> made all sorts of metal on metal noises. Have you done anything special
> to protect your engines and eliminate the noises?
> 
> Tom, feel free to expound.

*smile*

I put Slick50 in my Chevy Luv.. no idea if it helped or not, haven't done 
it since.. did it on someone's advice 5 or 6 years ago.. I haven't beaten 
the motor *that* much since.. but in any manner, Nah.

What we do up here is install engine heaters.  We had a thread on this a 
while back, discussing the merits of the different types.

I have only had "radiator" heaters.. they either insert in the drain cock 
area of the rad, or in-line with the lower rad hose.

On a quiet night I could hear my radiator "bubbling" a little with it 
plugged in.  Makes a BIG difference in the morning.

I still got the valve clatter and such for a moment or two, but the hot 
rad water got circulating and made things smoother.  It also makes your 
heater work MUCH faster.

The other option is a magnetic oil-pan heater.. keeps the oil from 
sludging up, but I don't know how well it heats the rest of the motor up.

I've also heard (did I?) about freeze-plug or magnetic block heaters to 
just plain old heat the block..

If I were really concerned, I would use the radiator and the oil heaters 
together.  Seems to be the easiest / cheapest / best compromise.

I'm waiting to see a rad and/or oil heater that runs off 12v with a 
timer.. set your truck up with dual batts, isolated.  Run the timer off 
your "secondary" battery, such that around 4:30pm it kicks in and starts 
warming the rad and oil.. by the time you come outside at 5pm (who leaves 
work at 5pm, anyhow?) you'll be set.

-Tom