Does anyone have opinion as to whether riding an air cooled engine in frigid cold will hurt the engine? Someone was telling me that the cold air being sucked in was hard on the valves. Our annual toy run is the weekend and the temps are going to be around 0 degrees.
Thanks in advance.

 

My snowblower doesn't have any problems running at those temps and it's air cooled too.

 

Ummmm simply NO!

 

Airplane engines, snowmobiles

 

No. Living up in the GWN I regularly ride down to about -10C (14F) and have done for many years. I know it will be a bit cooler (assuming you mean -1F) but if you allow the engine to warm up properly you will be OK. Just dont rev it until it is warmed up. Remember the old VW bug would run right down to -40, assuming of course you could get it started

 

When I was a teenager I use to ride my dike bike in the winter, following snowmobile trails and busting through snow drifts. I worried that it would crack a casing or something, but never had a problem, the snow just melted away.

 

& you believed that genius?!

 

Someone was just blowing a bit of HOT air at you.

 

Just let it warm up for awhile. I know I would and that 10w-40 oil can't hurt it any. Now lets not hear any bitching about engine heat and fried thighs ok!!

 

-1??.... Maybe he was hoping we would talk him out of it