Nomad Willy
Guru
I asked quite some time ago about what is so bad about idling an engine with no load. No response so I'm assuming on one knows.
I bought into it fully for most of my life but now I'm think'in it may just be some old wife's tale like thing that mechanics perpetuate because they heard it from someone else and it sounded good. Lots of that sort of thing out there and we lay-people never REALLY know if it's true.
Underloading issues? Too much information exists to reject it entirely but little evidence exists to say it can't be done safely either. LOTS of people doing it and hardly ever a problem.
In my years in Alaska I've run my engine at the dock every three weeks or so when we didn't go out. For a year or two I'd tighten up the spring lines and run it in gear to have a load on but for 3 or 4 years now i've just run out of gear for 10 min at 1100rpm and then at 1400rpm for 10 min and then a bit at 800rpm and then shut down. I have run up to and probably over 1/2 hour like this. John Deere dosn't approve I know nor do many or probably most boat owners. I suppose I'm a self appointed myth-buster but I don't have any hard evidence showing why it's bad to run an engine w no load. As a general practice I minimize idling for other reasons like noise pollution near other people ect.
But specifically I know of nothing that indicates that it's bad for engines to run w/o a load .... other than so in so says it's bad. And of course running w no load over long periods is even worse than running w only a light load. That is another issue.
I bought into it fully for most of my life but now I'm think'in it may just be some old wife's tale like thing that mechanics perpetuate because they heard it from someone else and it sounded good. Lots of that sort of thing out there and we lay-people never REALLY know if it's true.
Underloading issues? Too much information exists to reject it entirely but little evidence exists to say it can't be done safely either. LOTS of people doing it and hardly ever a problem.
In my years in Alaska I've run my engine at the dock every three weeks or so when we didn't go out. For a year or two I'd tighten up the spring lines and run it in gear to have a load on but for 3 or 4 years now i've just run out of gear for 10 min at 1100rpm and then at 1400rpm for 10 min and then a bit at 800rpm and then shut down. I have run up to and probably over 1/2 hour like this. John Deere dosn't approve I know nor do many or probably most boat owners. I suppose I'm a self appointed myth-buster but I don't have any hard evidence showing why it's bad to run an engine w no load. As a general practice I minimize idling for other reasons like noise pollution near other people ect.
But specifically I know of nothing that indicates that it's bad for engines to run w/o a load .... other than so in so says it's bad. And of course running w no load over long periods is even worse than running w only a light load. That is another issue.