Quote:
Originally Posted by pete c
been giving the small garage idea more thought. Trouble is it's kinda big and expensive. How about something smaller that would be more like a boot that could just cover the front clip? Make it about four feet tall, maybe 2 ft wider than the car, stuff it with lots of fiberglass batt insulation with a tarp on the inside which would hold the insulation up. Opening with the car not there would be a little smaller than the front clip. As you pull into it, the tarp/insulation expands for a nice cozy airtight fit. You could even place insulation on the floor which would sit roughlt the same height as the bottom of the car.
Done right, there would be virtually no airflow. I would think that such a device could keep the engine at least warm to the touch overnight.
I think you could build this for under 100 dollars.
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Sounds like a more elegant version of what I did a few years ago when I didn't have a good enough anti-freeze mixture in my car when winter began to set in, and couldn't get it started to circulate new antifreeze through the engine block.
I basically draped a plastic tarp over the hood & held the edges to the ground with rocks & bricks, then put a couple 150 watt light bulbs under the engine plugged into extension cords. It was ugly & I'm sure my neighbors weren't too impressed, but my engine block didn't crack. I was finally able to get it started & enrichen the antifreeze mixture during a warm spell, so I only needed to keep it that way for a couple of weeks.
But I like the sound of your idea - add some sort of a heater under there, and you'd really be "set" - even a light bulb on a timer!!