Non-op vehicle

[Redhawk454]

Ive heard its hard on the thermostat when they sit for months/years..

Cylinder walls can and do rust. It mainly happens with air cooled airplane engines and tractors.

Engine needs to be fully warmed as well as the oil!

diesel generators will wet stack even if the generator and motor oil are ran at operating temperatures. They need to loaded.

 

[JWC86]

IMO I would let it sit for the year but I would make sure it has non-ethanol fuel in it and fog the cylinders.

 

[Luftmasse]

Ive heard its hard on the thermostat when they sit for months/years..

Cylinder walls can and do rust. It mainly happens with air cooled airplane engines and tractors.

Engine needs to be fully warmed as well as the oil!

diesel generators will wet stack even if the generator and motor oil are ran at operating temperatures. They need to loaded.

On the modern engines which would rust first, engine or tailpipe?

If you had the choice, which would you do? No start the vehicle or start it once a month and let it idle?

 

[Redhawk454]

On the modern engines which would rust first, engine or tailpipe?

If you had the choice, which would you do? No start the vehicle or start it once a month and let it idle?

If you can’t or don’t want to drive it around, I’d start it up and idle for a few minutes and then slowly up the rpms for 20 minutes until the oil gets hot and stays hot for a while.

I think tailpipe would rust first. I don’t know.

I do know the phenomena of engines rusting on the inside certainly does exist though. How long it takes to rust on the cylinder walls and such I don’t know.

 

[KrisZ]

I think most people overthink storage. If it’s garaged and out of elements, it doesn’t require much at all.
Here is a very, very extreme example. A Honda CBX that was found in a pile of motorcycles being there for 20 or 30 years.
This guys found it and restored it. I usually don’t subscribe to YouTube channels, I did in this case.
Here is the engine tear down video.


Here are some screenshots I took for those that don’t have the time to watch it.

The bike was found in this pile.

Here is the oil pickup, looks very good IMO.

Here are the cylinders. You can clearly see the one that had water in it is badly rusted, the ones that didn’t are in very good shape all things considered.

One year of storage in a garage, out of elements and with some prep work, it will absolutely be fine.