Camper vs Frost

As it was expected, the temperature on sunday was around -15°C (5°F). I wanted to try if my camper would start and if it would, let it run idle for a while, as I drove it last time about one month ago.

My camper has glow plugs indicator light broken, so I have to use another way to determine when the glow plugs are turned off. I turn on a light above the driver's door, and when I turn the glow plugs on, the light dims a bit. When it becomes bright again, I know that it's the time to use the starter.


On sunday, I went to my camper, and tried to start it. I used the glow plugs twice, as Tomek advised. Then i turned the key a bit further to start the starter. And it did work well, though rather slow. The engine didn't start. I repeated the same procedure again, this time pushing the acceleration pedal to the metal, again with no effect.

I was a bit worried. I expected the car wouldn't start, but I expected a failure of the battery and starter, not the engine itself. So I thought that it was probably caused by fuel that froze in the the fuel filter. I didn't have winter fuel in my fuel tank. I came back home and thought up that later I would use my portable wood gas stove to warm the engine and hot water brought from home to warm the fuel filter. But eventually I didn't have to do neither.

The weather forecast for this Christmas was rather warm. It was supposed to be around 0°C (32°F) yesterday and more than 10°C (50°F) today. So yesterday I went to get my camper from the parking space to home and it did start almost instantaneously.

And today I bought full tank of winter diesel fuel, that should be resistant to freezing. ;)