Spring Class A Checklist
First year doing our own spring thing with a Class A We did our own winterizing, in our driveway: empty tanks, blew out the water lines and added antifreeze to the drains We have been running th...
Forum Discussion
gbopp wrote:mike brez wrote:
It is bad to start your engine once a month if you are not going to take it out for 30 min. or so ride.
A few years ago someone posted on the forum about this subject. Their system was to start the engine and run it less than a minute.
Running it a short period would circulate the oil. It would not build up enough heat to cause condensation.
It seems to make sense but, I've never tried it.
That seems equally as useless to me. You run the engine just until it really gets lubricated, ensuring that the maximum wear and tear is done, and then shut it off. Why bother at all? It's not like oil separates or goes bad if it sits, nor will it drain back into the sump notably more in four months than it does in one month.
Cold starts are pretty hard on an engine. It only makes sense to avoid them if they serve no useful purpose; for winter storage, that generally means simply not starting the engine. (The generator gets run for different reasons: to prevent the carburetor from gumming up due to gas evaporating, to keep the slip rings from getting too corroded from sitting, and perhaps to drive off any moisture that has accumulated in the windings. None of these apply to the main engine, assuming its new enough to be fuel injected.)
