"David Megginson" wrote in message
...

At -10 degC, my PA-28-161 will usually turn over and fire just fine
without preheat (also copper cables), and I'm not sure how old the
battery is. At first I had the heater plugged in for any subzero
temperatures, but now I just do it when it's significantly cold out.

During my renter days in Montreal the flight school was adamant about
plugging in the aircraft below 0 degC. Their take was, warm oil spreads
itself around faster than colder oil and this would minimize start-up wear
and tear.

From my relatively inexperienced point of view, I'd suggest having
everything checked -- battery, wiring, starter, primer lines, mags,
etc. -- given that we have similar planes and your summer start is
already suboptimal. It won't be any fun being stuck at a little
country airport in the winter with a plane that won't start.

I will be talking to the mechanic sometime this week and ask him to work his
way forward from the battery to the starter. Hopefully it will be an
el-cheapo fix, like cleaning contact surfaces. I'll post the results.

By the way, my AME showed me a great trick for starting in general,
but one that's especially useful in the winter. Instead of opening
the throttle to get the engine to catch, keep the throttle almost
closed and pump the primer while cranking -- it seems to work much
better, and you don't end up surging the engine at 1200-1500 RPM (or
worse) when everything's still cold.

My instructor in Montreal used to do this, I just need to remember to do it
nex time.

Cheers!

Jose Vivanco

C-GPYH @ CYRO