Warm up time

[Soundguy]

I've never seen an emergency diesel generator that has a "warm up" time. They go from 0 to full load in less than 10 seconds. Doesn't seem to hurt them a bit. Now as far as tractor hydraulics, they might need a warm up.

i guess you kind of miss the 'emergency' part of emergency generator.

it HAS to come on immediatly. screaming to life has to have some sort of small negative effect. .. however if you look at an emergency gensets usage lifespan vs say.. a FARM TRACTOR.. the tractor is going to have WAY more engine up time.

if you screamed both to life 5 times a day.. i bet you might see a reduced lifespan...

[Soundguy]

Letting a heavy diesel engine try to warm up sitting with no load is a huge waste of your time, fuel, and emits a lot of nastier emissions. The engine shouldn't be run right to rated power when cold, sure, but you can certainly drive around basically right away after starting. Emissions are much worse before the engine warms up. It's in our collective interest as a society to get our engines warmed up as quickly as possible.

I typically just start mine, do the walk around to check for leaks or missing clips/pins, etc, then get right to work. Maybe 30 seconds of idling and we're off.

i do similar.. as i stated above. start.. let run while checking, and then go.. waiting a bit befor efull load.

however.. keep in mind that the enigne is not the only thing you are waiting on.

getting hyds circulting for instance.

I know some heavy equipment that have hyds bypass foot buttons to aid in cold starts so that you can get the dern engine spinning fast enough to start by unlaoding the hyds that may have set up like lard during the cold..

there are also some machine that depend upon air buildup.

none of our road tractors can even move before they hit 90 psi after startup..

[daugen]

I was a member of boatdiesel.com for many years, and a constant issue was similar to this, how long to warm up, particularly when you are smoking out your neighbors at the dock. The conclusions were also similar. Since most docks/marinas are in a no wake zone, one has to idle out slowly often for many minutes to get past the no wake buoy where you can increase your speed. Plus you always start your engines before taking off your lines so there is some time delay there too. Not like a car or tractor for sure. The general opinion was that sitting at the dock for more than five minutes at idle was a bad idea, and that one should get moving, slowly, within a few minutes. I always nudged the transmission into forward and reverse first, just a safety precaution to make sure the hydraulics were all happy.

In boating, there are many, many horror stories of expensive yachts wrecking their engines going down the intercoastal to Florida just over idle, trying to save fuel. Particularly in cold weather/cold water where the engines never got up to at least 180 degrees. I'm surprised how slow my Kubota is to warm up. Granted it was low thirties this morning, but I slowpoked quite a distance before I even saw one bar on the temp gauge. My older Case IH warms up much faster so clearly different engines have different needs.

[Deere Dude]

Good thread and maybe I learned something. I don't know why I do, but I have a 45 HP JD 3720 and idle and baby it for the first 5 minutes or so to get warmed up then go, but then I also have a 25? HP X740 diesel and start it up and back it out of the garage and then it's wide open. I suppose I should baby the small one for a few minutes also. Diesel is diesel.

[MBTRAC]

Depends on the machine temperature/ambient temperature, all varies on the season & if the machine is left in the "paddock" or shedded:

- used in heavy applications close to start up our large farm tractor,pump or earthmovers, trucks & combines in Spring c.10minutes+ & longer in Winter (basically left after start up to fast idle until registering operating temp & while it's greased)
- a small tractor below 50hp usually warms in c. 5minutes

The critical factors are after initial start up not to let them idle too long below "fast idle" & let the engine reach operating temperature before using higher rev's or imposing high torque loads/power demands (including hydraulics/hydrostatic loads) otherwise glazing, premature wear or catastrophic failure may result

Adding to my previous post:-
- When the engine was last used & if it used sporadically/seasonally also has a major potential impact on engine wear/warm up time, for example if the engine has been sitting for month(s) the oil is not going to be as evenly distributed from start up as if the engine is used daily or even weekly.
- As for cool down period prior to shut off, Turbo or not we idle down for c.2 minutes, with most of our larger gear have turbo timers fitted set to idle/auto shut down after 2minutes standing (though they have coolled down already to an extent from travelling from field work)
- The quality/condition of the oil & coolants used, together with the condition of the machines cooling system will have similar influences on the wear/longevity of the engine to warm up/cool down time
Using these basic guidelines our larger gear regularly achieves 12000hrs+ with relatively clean oil sample analysis/little or no discernable engine wear. And even our CUT engine are ok @ 7000hrs+.

As we run our farms on "green" sustainability principles & on some have also secured organic certifcation, I always find the environmental aspects of our operations interesting considerations,though a holistic view of product "whole of life" cycle is required to fully appreciate environmental impacts,IMO:
- The extra diesel usage cost/emissions in warm up/cool down time is more than offset by the decreased engine wear/increased life of the machine, thereby avoiding the significant pollutants/resource consumption of producing a replacement machine....sustaining an older machine is generally more environmentally sympathetic than raplcing with new
- Though tempted by significant savings (@c.$17K+/yr) by Biofuels (diesel & ethanol) across our fleet, being hygroscopic biofuels readily absorb water, contaminates & promote the growth of diesel algae potentially inducing similar/greater engine wear characteristics to lack of warm up/cool down time. Also biofuels whilst offering advantages in CO2 emissions, are contrary to our "green" sustainable farming principles; with biofuel crop production (being high water & phosphate/nitrogen fertiliser dependent) when combined with biofuel production/refining have far greater overall environmental impacts than fossil fuels....others may have a different view.

[Jkott]

Our emergency generators at work have their coolant continually heated to well above 120 degree coolant temps, so they are already warmed up when they start and are run at full load in under 10 seconds.

Don't forget that you are heating up a gallon of oil, a gallon or more of coolant, and more than 8 gallons of hydraulic fluid , plus all the cast iron.

[joshuabardwell]

nice memory about your Dad. I grumbled earlier about a lack of a real temp gauge, and the same applies for oil pressure. My older Case IH has a real oil pressure gauge, but my new Kubota doesn't. Doesn't seem like progress to me...
Since my engine is turboed, could anyone suggest a reasonable period of time for "cool down"? I think like most I idle or close to it into the garage/barn, and then I let it sit for about 30 seconds at idle. There seem to be a total of six bars on the idiot temp gauge and so far I've never gotten over four. I don't know what rpm the turbo kicks in, but I'm guessing that at idle it's just spinning down to stop. My understanding is that one doesn't want to fry the oil sitting in the turbo when it stops, but how long is reasonable? I'm doing loader work and not working the machine very hard, and usually not over 2000 rpm.

My turbo diesel truck says 1 to 5 minutes depending on whether you were driving light vs pulling or highway driving. Seems like that might be a good starting point.

[dennis52]

The owners manual for my turbo diesel pick up makes no mention of warming up.
People I know with diesel pick ups also don't seem to warm them up.
My question is why do I have to warm up my diesel engined tractor for several minutes but not my diesel engined 4WD pick up ?

[RaydaKub]

I used to let my GMC 6.2L warm up for 5 minutes or more if I could. If I didn't it sounded like the pistons were gonna pop right outta the hood. The knock in there was terrible. 5 minutes was usually enough to let it drop off the fast idle cam.

[daugen]

People I know with diesel pick ups also don't seem to warm them up.
well mate, perhaps because it doesn't get overly cold in that beautiful area of yours...
I also find it hard to believe you would get to the end of your driveway and floor it on a stone cold (but apparently not that cold) engine.
But you make a good point, wonder if other trucks have much to say on this. I think common sense would tell any driver, regardless of the engine, to start out slow and not load a cold engine.
Sublime winters. Sure not what we have...

The average maximum temperature is 25.2C and the average minimum temperature is 15.7C.
Queensland’s climate is not as distinctive as the cooler climates of Australia’s southern states.
Queensland experiences some of the most sublime winter weather you’ll ever experience. The days are invariably mild, fine and sunny.