Oil & Fuel frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel?

   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #1  
fattyfat1

fattyfat1

Silver Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2006
Messages
100
Location
MY DEALER SUCKS, WA
Tractor
John Deere 2305
i've heard its hard on a diesel engine to start and stop it all the time. is this true w/my little 3-cyl yanmar? when i'm putting up wood for the woodstove, i fill my bucket and trailer, drive to the woodpile to stack, then back to driveway pile to reload. seems i'm excessively starting and stopping, should i just let it idle so it is running for 2 hrs. or start and stop it 5 times? starting and stopping saves fuel and hours on the meter, but is it hard on the motor?
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #2  
Ha! Lots of jobs around the farm involve stopping and starting. If that's a problem, a lot of folks I kow, including me are in trouble.
5 times in 2 hrs?!? Heck, that's steady driving on the farm.
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #3  
Back in "the day" (late 60's - early 70's) we would start an engine on the coaches we drove and not shut them down all day. The reasons we were told was, it took too much fuel to restart, they got fuel in the oil when restarting etc.
Today, if we stop, we shut down, period. I belive the engines of today are much better designed and emissions are much better controled so stopping is not an issue any more.
I could be wrong (I was once, so I was told :) ) but I don't worry about it at all.

Al
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #4  
I would say that if you had been working it hard I would let it sit and idle, but since you are not there really isn't any reason to let it cool down. I guess you are wearing your starter just by the fact of starting the tractor. I owned an 87 Jeep Cherokee 2.1 diesel that I drove from WV to WA state in 38 hours and never shut it off the whole time simply for the fact that it was hard running and fuel stops were not long enough for proper cool down.( still running with 350k miles.) If I am using my tractor for jobs that require stop and go I shut it off if the off tractor time is going to exceed 5 or 6 minutes. I'm sure you are going to get different opinions.
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #5  
My opinion: I let it run until it is up to operating temp. This helps drive off accumulated water in the oil and allows the battery to recharge fully. Once at temp I turn it off if the stop time is more than around 3-5 minutes. A lot of idleing is going to carbon up the chamber and the valves. An exception is when it is so cold that you shouldn't be out there in the first place, then I leave it running but around 2K rpm.
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #6  
Check the owners manual. Deere states that extended idling is bad for the engine, and that you SHOULD be shutting it down.
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #8  
To me this is a safety issue.

Every time I get out of the seat, I shut the tractor off. This way it will never jump into gear, I will never get caught in the PTO, etc.

The cost of a new engine, battery or starter is trivial compared to the possible problems from leaving it running.

Read the safety forum, there are many tales of an idling tractor running someone over...
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #9  
Excessive idleing will do more damage than 5 starts in 2 hours. Not only that but it's a waste of fuel, waste of your lubricating fluids that you are racking up time on and it's not safe to leave a tractor unattended.
 
   / frequent starts and stops hard on my diesel? #10  
It is harder on the starter than on the engine. Even then, I doubt that you will wear out the starter very quickly. Shut it down for safety sake.
Dusty
 
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