when to shut engine down??

[gotrocks]

Here's another neophyte question. When doing various projects with my 2910 at times I need to get off and move something by hand or whatever. My question; how long should one let the engine run as opposed to shutting down and restart. 5 min ? 10 min ? ?????? Thank you for some opinions on this delima.

 

[TonyC]

From my experience and reading, I don't think it's a big deal either way. If you are talking about fuel efficiency I would think anything over 5 minutes would use more fuel than stopping and restarting. As far as the engine itself, just set it to idle and it should be fine for quite a while. Obviously if you going to be off of it for a half hour or so, common sense dictates that you shut it down. In reality, you could probably let it run until you run out of gas and no harm would come. Of course you should never let it run out of fuel completely! THAT can be a headache.

 

[Bird]

gotrocks, it's been awhile now and I don't know where to find it, but there have been some long threads on this topic in the past, and some different opinions. one of my brothers, who used to drive 18-wheelers once said diesel was cheaper than starters (laughing at the time), and I have a hay farmer neighbor who takes two tractors to the field to bale hay; one to pull the rake and one to pull the baler. He rakes awhile, bales awhile, rakes again, etc. and he never shuts either tractor down, but that's because they're air-conditioned cab models and he doesn't want it to get hot in there while he's on the other one./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif My opinion? Whatever you like to do; the tractor ain't gonna care./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Bird

 

[cp1969]

As far as I know, the only engines which (sometimes) need to be idled for a while before shutdown are turbocharged ones. The reason for this is residual heat in the turbo; idling for a while lets oil and air transfer most of this heat away. Oil can coke in the bearings if it gets too hot.

 

[scruffy]

It would seem (depending on tractor age) that the accumulated wasted time on the clock would be a major consideration.

 

[jdkid]

Hi ya
yep turbos need to cool .it's the oil not moveing that dose the damage ie turbo at just under red hot ....working hard ya can light a smoke of them!!!!now stop the oil flow the bearings are still spining at warp factor 9 but the heat cookes the oil making a varnish coating on bearings and heats the hell out if oil seals that in turn can lead to oil leaks in to intake or ex side of turbo ..not on the other matter motors don't like ildeing 5 to 10 minutes is ok but 5 for non turbo is fine ,long idle time ya can get fuel leaking into ya oil and changes things to a thick paint like oil if so cut ya oil changes in 1/2 ...oil is ya motors life blood so look after it! i have read somewhere that CAT had a write up about this very thing maybe someone knows what i'm talking about and could post it for people to read ...anothe note fuel is cheeper than starter motors ture ..but starter motors are cheaper than motor rebuilds!!!!
catch ya
JD Kid