I was enjoying my recent hobby of perusing back copies of Popular Mechanics magazine, which Google Books has thoughtfully digitized and made available, and I came across this gem from 1940:
"Make you car easier to start in the cold by using a hair dryer". The article said to direct the hot air down the oil filler. Hand-held hair dryers back then were much like the ones today, except that the were made of metal. This approach worked on cars back then because the crankcase was "ventilated" by air entering the filler cap and exiting out a "draft tube" . I don't think it would work too well for modern autos with less crankcase ventilation, but our Lycomings basically use the draft tube approach.
Don't know how this would work on our engines, and don't want to be responsible for the risk involved with a sparking fan motor near fuel fumes, but I suppose something rigged up with a short length of SCAT tubing might be OK. Most hair dryers are rated for 1500 to 1850 Watts so they are in the range of most portable 120 volt heaters. If you have a 120V 20 A circuit in your hangar or accessible with an extension, it might be worth a try.
"Make you car easier to start in the cold by using a hair dryer". The article said to direct the hot air down the oil filler. Hand-held hair dryers back then were much like the ones today, except that the were made of metal. This approach worked on cars back then because the crankcase was "ventilated" by air entering the filler cap and exiting out a "draft tube" . I don't think it would work too well for modern autos with less crankcase ventilation, but our Lycomings basically use the draft tube approach.
Don't know how this would work on our engines, and don't want to be responsible for the risk involved with a sparking fan motor near fuel fumes, but I suppose something rigged up with a short length of SCAT tubing might be OK. Most hair dryers are rated for 1500 to 1850 Watts so they are in the range of most portable 120 volt heaters. If you have a 120V 20 A circuit in your hangar or accessible with an extension, it might be worth a try.
