Cold start at very high altitude

Hi !
We had a very stressful situation a few days ago with our van. We spent 2 days above 4800m at the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador. The third day, temperature was 4celsius above 0, but it was freezing outside.

The engine didn't want to start at all ! The park ranger station was far away from the base camp, and there was no one else in the park.

After a few tests, we started to drain the batteries (worst case scenario, we have a solar panel to refill them).
Last thing to try was to spray wd40 in the air intake. We removed the air filter, sprayed the wd40 and starting the engine at the same time, took about 15seconds of starter to help the engine but it finally came back to life !

Can anyone recommend a good method to start the van in these conditions ? Or is wd40 the way to go ?
Should we take a look at the glow plugs ? (they worked well a few days ago at the same temperature, but lower altitude)
thanks !







David

Altitude and cold, thick fuel and rare air, not a good mix.
Easy start or as you found WD40 works but not advised for daily use.
No need to remove filter as the vapor gets through.

Fuel heater is used by Toyota in most of the range, along with extra fuel at start up, and a flap in the exhaust.

I have no experience of the conditions you describe but in my teens drove a tractor occasionally when the temperature was in single figures (Celsius). The owners used a spray with the brand name Aerostart which is ether based. It may be an Australian brand name.

The Australian name is start ya member of parliament!

thanks guys !
Not sure if we can put our hands on some aerostart down there, but there must be something similar.
Not sure if we can find fuel heater out of Quito, that would have been a great item to add while in the Uk. We'll see if we can get something.

Good to know we don't have to remove the filter, it's so messy behind the wheels

Yeah Clive, that would be the one.   

They must have changed the name ..it used to be called "Start you ba..ard "  

Been censored! You can still work it out from the censored name!

It's called Aero Start or Start Ya B.A.S.T.A.R.D. (without all the full stops)
Either way, it's an aerosol can of ether and it works well.
Seriously though, it sounds like the glow plugs are not working or you weren't using low temperature diesel fuel. (I'd say though is was more a case of the latter being true)
Low temp diesel is much thinner than normal diesel and as a result it flows better than normal diesel fuel at the low temps you encountered up there.
Given that there is very little suction available from the injector pump at the best of times I dare say that it would have been starving for fuel because it couldn't lift the thick fuel out of the tank.

They've just renamed the stuff again to Start Ya Abbott.