This arctic blast of cold air is going to put temps in Houston below freezing for several hours each night. I'm going hunting Saturday AM 20 degree predicted. Any steps to insure my rig won't have any issues...

Reason I'm asking is I saw a few people wrapping outboards at the storage unit last night. Should I wrap a blanket around the motor Friday night when I have her hooked up in front of the house or will it not even matter?

I'm sure half of you guys up North are laughing about now but give me a break we see 1-2 days out of the year below freezing not 3 in a row!

Any tips to prevent any problems Saturday morning would be greatly appreciated.

Plug in the block heater

Do you wrap your lawn mower...

I dont know what to tell you on the motor... aint never done mine...

all I know is that its not suppose to be this dayum cold in texas!!!

Make sure your starting battery has a good charge. Put something over the motor like a bucket or a tarp to keep ice from forming on it and throttle cables. That's about it. Extreme cold and hot weather taxes a battery pretty hard.

That's about it.

It was 23 degrees this AM and mines throttle cable froze-up !! It was dry and has never done this be-fo. I held a Mr. Heater in front of all it and gots it to start workin' again. Took off and was holdin' 'bout half throttle fo just a few minutes ..... let off ... and guess what .... frozen again 'cept this time I was half throttle !!! Started jackin' with it 'till I broke the dang cable. Got her pulled back to the idle mode and made mines hunt .... shot 3 nice CatSkwerrlls befo work !!!

Called Gator-Tail 911 and thay shippin' me one as I type !!!

I'm joinin' in with WestEnd Angler with this thread ....... What can I do to keep this from occurin' again ??

yep, last week it rained all day then froze that night. everything in the dayum boat was frozen solid. plus the tow to the ramp didnt help anything. the foldin lawn chairs wouldnt even unfold! throttle cable was frozen solid, got it movin then got stuck in WOT... sucked ass... finally got it goin but took forever at the ramp lookin like a jackass..

Posting up to keep track of information. I might run a vent hose into my secondary air intake off my exhaust manifold to warm the air into the carb. My problem is the freakin guys I hunt with won't go as they think it's too cold give me a freakin break-we get on the birds and the weather is right and these dudes don't want to go. They will play hell getting in my rig in the future.

Bunch of southern sallies!!!


Just F*ckin with ya. I hunt all fall in temps colder than that. Southern Minnesota, never have many problems, just make sure battery has charge and if it doesn't don't run spotlights constantly. Allow warm up time at the ramp, these motors hate takin off cold!

I use this stuff on the throttle cable and it has worked well for me.
http://www.cabelas.com/p-0017253117468a.shtml

It works great and you don't need much. I wouldn't worry about coverin motor warmup at ramp will unthaw anything and I'm sure your water temp is plenty warm to keep from freezing. We deal with 10 degree temps and water temps hovering right at freezing and end up having an extra 100 pounds of ice on rig before we are back to ramp in morning.

GRAND PASSAGE???

Snow Line


Wednesday Lows

15 below 0 this mornin!!colder than fu@k around here!! It's warmer in Alaska. We was out on the river last year, 34 degrees when we left, started sleeting and rainin after we set up. 5 miles down river, throttle cable froze, dekes froze in the sand bar, most miserable trip yet. had to pull the line off a deke to tie on the thottle (free tip)to get back, had to have ,600 lbs of ice on the blind , deekes and dog. tore the shit out of the prop rampin over 4ft chunks of ice floating down the slushed river. got back on the trailer, 14 degrees with wind blowin 30 , river stopped flowing about 45 mins after we got out. Motor ran good, Throttle cable was the only problem. You can spray it full of like wd-40 or something that wont freeze easily and displaces moisture. only other thing, I put a generous amount of Dielectric grease on my sparkplug boots,(any good autoparts store) keeps the water out and the spark in. If you got the stock aircleaner, point the hole toward the exhaust to try to get a little warm air in the carb, and keep it from icing. Good luck!!!!!

It was -4* at the house this morning.. High got up to 11.. Been like this since Christmas around here and ain't gonna change til next Monday or Tuesday.. Fri it's supposed to be -8* with a high of 3*.. I ran my motor in 10* temps this year without doing anything special to it.. You won't have to worry about anything at 20* cept maybe a freezing throttle cable.. I put white grease on the ends of mine to keep water out..

Thats some good tips from you fellers from the Northern Terrytory and we thanks you !!!!! Its still funny 'round here .. watchin' folks ... good thang is ... Thay is only a handfull Skwerrll hunters even tryin' it rite now !!!

Global Warming?


Yea -- kiss my ass LOL

You guy sspray any lubricant to help with the Throttle cable from sticking/ freezing?

Ya I use Quantum Red Hot Reel Lube, doesn't take much and havn't had a problem yet.

http://www.cabelas.com/p-0017253117468a.shtml

I would think white lithium grease would also work.

BTW, -10 this morning when I woke up. F***in heat wave, been hoverin around -20 for lows since Christmas.

i hope it brings in some ducks for this weekend. goin on a hunt at caddo saturday and sunday.

I always crank my PD the night before a hunt and let it warm up for 5 minutes at idle and then run it wot for a couple of minutes to allow the engine to really heat up some and then bring it back down to idle for 20 secs or so and cut it off. It always cranks on the first key turn at the ramp the next morning. My ritual may not make a difference but I think it does!

Mighty frozen down here in Coastal N.C. You got to turn the Air filter ex towards the heater, and try to keep a propane heater. We will have about ten days of freezing weather for most years.

I run 10w 30 or Syth oil, as straight 30 isn't too sweet below freezing. Had one inch ice knock off my lower unit lubracator on my GDSD this morning, that is a lot of ice pressure, but called Mr. Warren Coco...and he's shippng a new one to me asap.

We got some serious diver hunting along our coastal bays and sounds, but not the massive numbers like down on the Laguna Madre of Middle Tx Coastal bays.

Best regards.....

JOE GUIDE
NC Author: RED FISH ON A FLY
(www.redfishonafly.com)

One thought I didn't read that we deal with up north occasionally is the throttle freezing open. crack the throttle a few times before you start it to make sure it that it does not freeze wide open. Probably not cold enough for that but we deal with it on snowmobiles occasionally, can make for an exciting ride if it sticks open.

Once again ... mo good tips from our Northern Brethern !!!!

Gots another cold weather querston ~ How ya'lls go 'bout findin' yore pecker when you gots to take a leak ?? The other mornin' I done drank too much coffee and I went thru the trouble of rollin' mines waders down ... and spent the next five minutes tryin' to find the little feller !! I thot there fo awhile ... dang it ... it was just rite there a while ago ... back at the camp .... where did it go??? Started leakin' ... and ... wala ... there he was ..... all rolled up like at button on a overcoat ..... !!!!

Heres a few pics of what I deal with every mornin'.

It will be comin' your way before long!

My Blazer in front of my house.



Lookin West



Straight across street



Hope you fellars are enjoyin the open water because it will be a few long months before I see it again. Even though buddy of mine was thinkin of takin a long trip.

My throttle was froze up Tues mornin. I just happened to check it b4 I put in the water. Worked it back and forth for a while till it felt freed up. All the way to the blind I kept playin the throttle to make sure it diddn't freeze back up. When I got home, I put some marine axle grease on both ends of the cable and worked into the sleeve. Guess I'll know in the morn if it worked or not.

ROFLMAO

After having had mine for four seasons in Upstate NY, this is basically what I can tell you.

Let your motor warm up. Warm it up until you think it's good, then let it warm up for a few more minutes. Keep an extra set of plugs on the boat. The plugs seem to foul easy when the temps get down there. Keep WD-40 in the boat. When it really gets cold, there's not much you can do if your throttle cable freezes, but I try to limit myself to only drinking half the coffee in my thermos after the temps drop below 10 or so. Have had a few times where the other half saved my butt when switches froze, gas lines, throttle cable, plug, etc. If your switches freeze, pour the coffee on them and then spray them immediately with the WD-40. It'll displace the ice that's turned to water and they'll start working again. The cold is hard on batteries, so if you've got a second one around or a jump box, take it with you. Use HEET in the red bottle mixed with your gas, especially with the Ethanol at the pumps now. If you are in an area with ice, try to avoid floe-ice in lakes/large swamps/slack water where the wind can stack it up. In rivers just run the sh!t over as best you can. If you're in non-current water, and it's stacked up several sheets thick, you'll need somebody with a push pole in the back of the boat to try to keep it away from the prop while you wrestle the motor. MM's do not like floe-ice. The ice will push the motor up and if the sheets are over 2" thick and they're stacked three high, it's brutal trying to keep the prop in the water.

If your throttle cable is frozen, take it off and set it on top of your fridge for a couple days. That'll pull most of the water that's trapped in it out.


One more little tid-bit. If you've got a grinding helmet/mask, the kind that's basically a fullface shield, they work great when the temps drop down low when you're running to your spot.