Isaac Ristow
Full Access Member
I'm not a fan of magnetic oil pan heaters. They put allot of heat into a small area and burn oil in the bottom of the oil pan and don't heat all the oil up that good. I live in Wisconsin where we see -35 in the winter and the best thing you can have is the factory style frost plug heater and a timer on the cord. My truck started out as a 83 with the "prone to cracking with block heater issue" when I drove it in the winter I would plug it into a timer to come on 2 hours before I had to start it to go to work always started never had a cracking issue neither did the original owner. You only need a couple hours a timer is a good investment. I since put a rust free 84 body on basically rebuilt the whole truck now has a 7.3 with a turbo a zf5 etc gets parked in the winter now. Next best thing to a freeze plug heater is a circulating tank heater that goes inline with the heater hoses I've had good luck with these. But by far the best thing is good batteries, cables, starter, glow plugs, fuel system. Ford/Navistar designed these to start at -15 or -20 not plugged in... Little tlc goes along ways