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Leave the heater plugged in or not in cold Iowa

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Randy G

Member
I have a 1981 2940. I"ve been told to leave it plugged in and to just plug it in 30 - 40 minutes before I use it. The heater is on the left side if your sitting on the seat and looks as if it goes into the head. It appears to be "plumbed" in to it and sits outside the engine. Its not hooked in the lower or upper radiator hoses. I have the type heater that screws into the head bottom drain plug on 2 cylinders and this is different....canister type ? What do you guys do?
 
I have what you describe on my 2940, a small tank plumbed from the lower block to feed the head. Works great, it was 10F here last nite, plugged it in 3hr and it started like summer. Could probably have cut that to 2 hr and got a good start. After some time plugged in the hose should be hot if its working. Couple of years ago tractor cranked hard after being pluged in, turned out the heater had failed, Tractor supply sells replacement heaters pretty cheap.
 
i plug my 4020 in a few hours before i need it, unless it's gonna snow overnight. an hour or so of heating and it starts pretty good and i think i'm saving on energy as well as overheating anything. just what i do. we use to plug em in at night and leave em that way, it works also, so guess it's personal preference.
 
A few years ago I talked to a man from Canada who said his family had a saw mill run by a v6 Detroit. They would just leave the Detroit idling all nite till the next morning when they would use it again then let it idle all nite till the next day and use it all over again. I don't remember how many days in a row he said it ran like that.
--Walt--
 
Hi, you are describing a recirculating tank heater. Almost every Diesel tractor in the colder parts of Canada comes with a recirculating tank heater installed from the dealer. They work great, usually come in 1000W and 1500W with a thermostat so they shut off when coolant is up to temp.

Recommendations from a web site:
TANK-TYPE ENGINE HEATERS
Fast starts all winter long.
Built-in thermostat prevents overheating and burnout. Keeps engine warm by circulating warm engine coolant through entire engine. Quicker heater and defroster output. Connects to 5/8" heater hose. Operates on regular AC house current. 120 volt. With 1-ft. grounded cord and instructions.
750-Watt. Warms 4-cylinder engines in 2-3 hours, 6-cylinder engines overnight.
1,000-Watt. Warms 6-cylinder engines in 2-3 hours, 8-cylinder engines overnight.
1,500-Watt. Warms 8-cylinder engines in 2-3 hours.

Re leaving Diesel running all night. In the mid 60s, neighbour was using a JD Forestery Skidder in the back woods where there was no electric power for a coolant heater so at -30F, he would leave the skidder idling all night and all day Sunday.

JimB
 
At a service school I went to years ago there was a discussion on block heaters and weather to leave them pluged in all the time or not. Deere's angle on it was not to leave them pluged in all the time because it keeps the block tempature above normal cold shut down tempature. This allows the oil film on the cylinder walls to migrate down leaving a dry, poorly lubed upper cylinder for start up causing increased cylinder wear.
 
Some nice information and explanations here...

In Tx, we rarely stay in the freezing range except from late night to early morning - this weekend we will have 20 - 34, which is very rare.

How cold is it [or going to be] where you guys live? Makes for a nice fire.

Regards,
tstex
 
We have a 1981 2940 with a tank heater on it if you plug it in a half hr to an hr before you want to use it thats enough its only 1000 watt. But most the time unless its below 10 degrees outside we dont plug the 2940 in and she starts right up. Im located in northeast wisconsin and it gets to -30 on some cold winter nights
 
nice little engineer-type theory. however, in -30f that heater will never get the engine as warm as on a hot summer day when you shut it off at 100 deg. air temp & the oil drains back just the same. so i respectfully disagree. if it were mine id leave it plugged in. the warmer the better, less cold running means cleaner oil, which leads to less cylinder wear. lol.
 
Their main point was don't leave it plugged in 24/7 run the heater a couple hours before you need it, as several here have said they do.
 
sure. but what of an engine shut off hot in 100deg. weather then left to sit for a month before restart as so many are? just seems silly to me when cold startups are so much more detrimental than a highly polished, although dry, cylinder wall.
 
Interesting that nobody said, "It depends." When we lived in Fairbanks, AK, every vehicle had an engine heater. How long you used them depended on the nature of the vehicle, how cold the temperature actually got and to some degree even how the heater was plumbed into the engine. By trial and error it isn't too hard to figure out how long it needs to heat before trying to start an engine. At -30° we would run them about three hours before starting an engine. After you have an engine hot, it will still start at -30° after about three hours, maybe four. Once you figure out how long it takes to warm it up, there are lots of inexpensive timers that will start the heater at 4:00 AM or whenever you want it on.

One thing some people don't think about when preheating an engine is what happens to the rest of the drive line. I blew reverse out of a Chevy car by firing up the engine and putting it in gear immediately without letting the tranny spin for a while. In VERY cold temps, the tranny needs to be in neutral so it can loosen up before you start trying to put it to work.
 
(quoted from post at 03:16:05 01/05/10) I have a 1981 2940. I"ve been told to leave it plugged in and to just plug it in 30 - 40 minutes before I use it. The heater is on the left side if your sitting on the seat and looks as if it goes into the head. It appears to be "plumbed" in to it and sits outside the engine. Its not hooked in the lower or upper radiator hoses. I have the type heater that screws into the head bottom drain plug on 2 cylinders and this is different....canister type ? What do you guys do?
Click to expand...

Yes 30 or 40 min is fine, but an hour is even better. I have a engine heater timer. If i think i may need to plow snow before i go to work. I set it for 3:00 am and plug it in the night before. I get up at 4:00 am to plow and it nice a ready to go.
 
I leave the tractors I use plugged in 24/7 here in iowa when it is this cold, SOL if you don't in my opinion when it cost penneys a day to run a block heater

The bobcat however, burnt out the block heater under warranty and they told me to put it on a timer as that is a common problem, Bunch of BS i think, I just leave it in the heated shop now.

I looked into the timers that everyone raves about, but almost all of them are not rated for enough amperage. Sounds like a good way to start a fire.
 
if you use this tractor every day plug it in when you shut the tractor off. isn't it easier to keep the engine warm than letting it get cold and warming it up the next day?
what about if electric goes off in middle of night when is colder than ice cubes in a freezer then when you wake up tractor won't start to run the generator.
if tractor had been warm when electric went off at least tractor might be warm enough to start.
 
You are jumping over two points here first turning a heater on a couple hours befor startup heats the engine enough for a safe easy start. An automatic timer works well for this and can pay for itself in enery savings in short order. Second this hundred degree heat you speak of is not 24 hours a day, there is cooling period at night not the constant tempature of a block heater.
 
WOW!! Thanks for your responses!! I only use a couple times a week so plugging it in a few hours before I use it looks to be to way to go. Thanks so much guys!!

Randy G
 
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