Tractor idiling running woodsplitter

[dodge man]

I’ve never been a fan of idling anything for long periods of time, including warm ups and cool downs. Just a minute or two for warm up and take it easy a few minutes if it’s cold out. For cool down, you don’t want to shut the thing off after working it hard like when mowing heavy grass, especially a turbo engine but a 10 minute cool down isn’t normally needed either.

Wet stacking and diluted oil? Seems like that’s going to be more of a problem this time of year especially this time of year when it’s old out.

 

[grsthegreat]

I worry about idling a turbo diesel, not too worried about non turbos though.

 

[mini14]

I idle my skidsteer and tlb for many hours and the thermostat cycles like it's supposed to.

 

[zzvyb6]

OH... Good Question.
Modern engines don't do it much if at all but older diesels did - especially if cold or running too slow. And also when burning heavy #2 diesel fuel.
When it happens, you won't forget it.
The engine will cough about twice and then spit a load of black wet sloppy half burned diesel blobs out the exhaust and up into the air to shower you and the work.

You just ruined my coffee.

 

[beenthere]

WI'll running a woodsplitter at idle (800) rpm for a couple hours hurt my engine on a newholland t4020

Likely won't hurt it, but will cause wear and tear. Maybe, maybe not, be more expensive than a small 8hp engine.

 

[ArtMech]

In my opinion, if engine idle speed is enough to keep running a hydraulic pump which feeds splitter cylinder, then everything is fine. More or less it's the load.
Usually diesels do not like maximum RPMs.
At idle they may not fully burn fuel mixture, but if later you will give it some more use of power for more heavy jobs, then it'll be okey. You'll simply blow out the soot accumulated in the muffler at higher RPMs.

 

[SmallChange]

My New Holland WM25 manual includes this step while operating the geared transmission to start the tractor in motion (their bolding):

2) Move the hand throttle lever (2) forward until the engine speed is above 1500 RPM.

They don't elaborate on why. There's also a note about not lugging the engine during the first 50 hours. They explain "lugging" means operating the engine under such a load that increasing the fuel cannot increase engine speed.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Another day today, powering my PTO splitter for several hours,

and once again, my tractor just chugged along sipping fuel slooowly, making me money. lol

SR