Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 01:38:12 -0400
Reply-To: "Bostig Eng." <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "Bostig Eng." <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: Engine Storage Was: Seized Engine?
In-Reply-To: <025101c67d1a$9494a8b0$6801a8c0@yoursz6x6sefxo>
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At 05:07 PM 5/21/2006, ROBERT DONALDS wrote:
>the best times is before its stored and after its pulled from storage
>I also believe starting the van over the winter once a week or some such
>thing is a big mistake it just washes the oil off the cylinders
This cannot be stated enough! It is a VERY common misconception that it is
good practice to fire up an engine periodically when sitting. This is bad
bad practice, there are only two potential good reasons to do this(which
aren't good enough). The 1st being the battery, if a lead acid battery
drains to 0 volts it suffers damage and will never again take a full
charge, so pull the battery. 2nd is if moisture is inside the engine it can
rust, but this is usually not a huge problem, if you are really worried,
drop silica gel packets on strings tied to the ground straps of the spark
plugs into the cylinders and DON'T forget they are there :) and block off
all breathers before storage.
I had a customer that we did some performance work for (camshaft and tuning
on a pontiac 3800 series II, we didn't touch the shortblock) the engine had
no more than 46k miles on it, and spun a main... why? Because it was his
"show" car, he never drove it, but would once a week like clockwork fire it
up for 5 minutes... so it would sit for a week at a time, and all the oil
would run off from everywhere, then when things are the *least* oil coated
they are ever likely to be(esp. in winter!), he fires it up and then
repeats. When we pulled the engine, and looked at the cylinder walls they
had more wear than most high mile engines I've ever seen. He was also just
about to spin 2 or 3 more mains... So we're talking for each start cycle
the guy had done during storage and judging by condition and more normal
expected wear, I'd guess he was putting the rough equivalent of 5000 miles
on the engine EACH week, it adds up fast.
There is NO need to run an engine while stored. I've run and installed many
many salvage engines, some of which have sat in storage for 10+ years and
never been started.. the biggest problem is actually with external
corrosion and rust from washing the engine down prior to storage, and
putting it away wet... never with not having been run for the storage period.
Hope this helps someone in future,
Jim
________________________________________
Bostig Engineering
Engine Systems Voodoo
http://www.bostig.com/
617.272.3800
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