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Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

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Re: Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

#2
I've seen the wrong side of -40, when I was flying to work in Ft McMurray, Alberta for a consulting job.

One time, I drew the short straw and had to go pick up our SUVs at the parking lot upon landing. They were outside, plugged in.

The car started with the saddest sound I ever heard a mechanical thing make.

I put it in reverse, hit the gas, and pulled out of the spot. Then I put it in drive and hit the gas- and the car moved backwards. Every gear except for Park and Neutral did the same thing: reverse.

I reversed around the airport parking lot to the terminal and walked into the Hertz. When I explained the problem, they had clearly heard it before. "Don't worry about it. Just leave it on for a few minutes and you'll be fine. Transmission fluid's frozen."

Re: Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

#3

I've seen the wrong side of -40, when I was flying to work in Ft McMurray, Alberta for a consulting job. One time, I drew the short straw and had to go pick up our SUVs at the parking lot upon landing. They were outside, plugged in. The car started with the saddest sound I ever heard a mechanical thing make. I put it in reverse, hit the gas, and pulled out of the spot. Then I put it in drive and hit the gas- and the…

At least your power steering system was ok or you would have only been able to reverse in a straight line without the significant effort of wrenching on the wheel.

Re: Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

#6

I've seen the wrong side of -40, when I was flying to work in Ft McMurray, Alberta for a consulting job. One time, I drew the short straw and had to go pick up our SUVs at the parking lot upon landing. They were outside, plugged in. The car started with the saddest sound I ever heard a mechanical thing make. I put it in reverse, hit the gas, and pulled out of the spot. Then I put it in drive and hit the gas- and the…

I'm from Yellowknife, about 1000mi north of Ft McMurray. More often than not, we hit -45C with a windchill of ~ -60c. The coldest it's ever been up here was -52c in 1947, if I'm not mistaken..

Re: Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

#9
I live up in the Yukon and drove into Snag in the fall looking for Moose.

The history of the old abandoned town there is really cool, as were the Northern lights. We spent a couple of days wandering around all the old buildings, etc.

Pics here: http://theroadchoseme.com/more-yukon-fall-camping-2011

This year up on the Dempster for Caribou hunting, I saw -45C, the coldest I've seen yet. We were outside for the whole day snowshoeing around, it was spectacularly beautiful.

Lots of my friends up here have seen -55C.

Re: Google Doodle celebrates Canada’s coldest day, -63 ℃

#10

I've seen the wrong side of -40, when I was flying to work in Ft McMurray, Alberta for a consulting job. One time, I drew the short straw and had to go pick up our SUVs at the parking lot upon landing. They were outside, plugged in. The car started with the saddest sound I ever heard a mechanical thing make. I put it in reverse, hit the gas, and pulled out of the spot. Then I put it in drive and hit the gas- and the…

You didn't let it warm up?

In the Yukon, it's critical you let your car warm up. A block heater, battery blanket and oil pan heater are all needed, but they're only heating the actual engine block.

Think about how cold the oil in the transmission and diffs are.. let alone everything else.

You also want to drive extremely smoothly and slowly for the first ~5 mins to let everything circulate and slowly warm up to running temp - sudden moves or turns tears apart CV joints, and destroys other rubber seals.

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