Ram Block Heater and Cord -Missing

Back in the day when diesels started hard in cold weather our farm tractors didn't have all the sheet metal etc surrounding the engines. If we plugged the block heater (we called them frost plug heaters) approx 6 hours before starting time it warmed the coolant and the surrounding metal and also the oil to a certain extent. No, it would not bring the whole engine to 120 degrees but when sitting out in an open canopy the block and coolant around the heater may have been 120 while farther away it was maybe 70 degrees and the oil may have only been 20 degrees on a windy -10 degree morning but it was still "warmed up" and made a big difference in how long it took for the old Dino oil to circulate and the engine to warm up.

To say that the block heater didn't heat anything but the immediate water and block or oil just because it wasn't all up to 100+ degrees is ignorant. I would think that in a truck protected by all the sheet metal it would even do better then a fully exposed engine.