Winter starting

"jfp" realised it was Fri, 21 Nov 2003

15:09:45 -0000 and decided it was time to write:

Best is to run it for at least twenty miles of regular driving, or not run it at all. If you run it for a shorter time, all you do is run it just enough to draw in a lot of moisture through condensation, which will really wreck your engine.

Heating the engine with an electric fan 'to reduce wear' is one of the sillier things I've heard lately. Sounds utterly futile.

In message , on Fri,

21 Nov 2003, jfp writes

If you start it at all, best to take it for a run of at least 10 miles, preferably double that.

Three years ago I bought a car that had been more or less laid up for 7 years. At the time it was laid up, it had just over 4000 miles on a completely stripped and rebuilt engine. The owner had apparently started it up once a month over the 7 year period and let it run for 15-20 minutes.

When I bought it I had to completely strip and rebuild the engine again to cure the horrendous oil consumption and smoking problems.

"jfp" realised it was Fri, 21 Nov 2003

15:52:02 -0000 and decided it was time to write:

'Heating' the engine oil seems rather futile to me if the rest of the engine is still stone cold. You'll need more than just an electric fan to heat up an engine block.

[integral quote snipped - do you read from the bottom up? I don't, either!]

All I can see is that if you actually manage to heat up the oil some on particularly cold days you'll help it start with a poor battery.

I would not recommend starting the engine simply to run it for a while. I leave engines for months at a time with no problems. It cannot hurt to warm the engine up, but I think it will make little difference or improvement. If you only use the vehicle once a week, that is fine, but don't drive it to the corner and back again, as it will hardly warm up. If you want to do something worthwhile to improve your engine in the long term then buy and use an engine preheater unit.

MrCheerful

To be honist concidering the temerature the oil reches in a running engine, i think a fan heater will be of little or no help at all. It may loosen the oil enough to help a poor battery (which looses cranking amps as the temp drops) but as most newer engines don't have the crank sitting in the sump oil (saps power/costs fuel) there will be VV little help given. A good run is needed at high revs to clear plugs and soot from the choke operation, theres no substitute for a good 30 min run under load. :-)

improvement.

An engine preheater is a small device that plugs into the mains, is fitted in the bottom radiator hose (typically ) It preheats the water and circulates it through the engine and car heater. You usually would have it set to turn on via a time switch. When you get to the car the engine and heater are all at normal temperature. This means that the engine does not need choke (or equivalent) the heater works immediately, the engine responds normally etc. etc.

Fire engines have these as standard (or they certainly used to have) I think the only commonly available type in the uk is made by kenlowe. In canada there are dozens of sorts.

MrCheerful

"jfp" realised it was Fri, 21 Nov 2003

22:50:49 -0000 and decided it was time to write:

Please STFW:

And please stop top posting. Nobody reads from the bottom up - not even the chinese.

Only if you leabve it runnign for a couple of weeks on full belt. Its got an iron or aluminium block weighing hundreds of kilograms which needs to be heated first before the oil starts to warm up.

Absolutely pointless.

If you're that paranoid, read up on dry sumping the engine.

Apart from the well known Kenlowe Hotstart you could also look at

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

I had one many years ago made by a firm called Bray but I haven't seen it for years. Probably sold it with the car. If you do fit something like it, arrange things so that it plugs into the end wall of the garage so that when you forget about it and drive off the plug comes straight out of the socket. Plugging into a socket on a side wall tends to disembowel the house!

Ron Robinson

Exactly. It's the other sure-fire way of ruining an engine. If you feel you must do something just turn the engine by hand (or handle if you have one)180 degrees or so every now and then so that the valves and springs take it in turns to open and close, but never fire it up.

Ron Robinson

Anal alert, yippee ever thought about doing one?

Just a thought Off topic possibly, but does upper cylinder lubricant help reduce wear in a seldom used engine, or help to allay the effects of 'short runs'? If so would it help to inject it into the air intake as well as adding to the tank?

TT

Back in the early 70s, motorists were advised to do this if they were intended to leave an engine unused for a long time. You were supposed to run the engine and dribble RedeX into the air intakes and switch off when clouds of white smoke came out of the exhaust. The theory is that the RedeX protected the bores and valves from rust from any condensation. RedeX was also supposed to clean off the varnish from the piston rings so that they were a better fit in the bores when you restarted the engine. Of course, it might have been just a marketing message to boost the sales of RedeX!

I only tried it once. It didn't do any harm, but I can't actually say that it did any good either. A word of warning though - RedeX in high doses does something to spark plugs, and you will be devilled with odd misfires until you change them. So put in an old set, run the engine and dribble in the RedeX. When you restart the engine, do it with the old plugs in and run it until all trace of white smoke has gone from the exhaust. Then put your good plugs back and ditch the old ones.

Jim

A word of warning though - RedeX in high doses does

Thanks Jim. Interesting point about the plugs though. Who'd have thought!

TT