Oil change Needed

See my previous post.... looks like not a lot, and I love the oil change side bennie...

http://www.cpperformance.com/instructions/755-7050.pdf

That said, getting to the drain plug can be a challenge in some installs.

So what is the difference in turning the engine over with the starter versus turning it over while the cylinders are firing??? You are still turning the UNoiled engine whether it is the starter or the result of combustion. I used to use this method to preheat the engine when there was no preheat available(fuel spray further cools the combustion chamber).

I'm surprised that any of you "oilers" can sleep at night with all this worry.

If 90% of your engine wear occurs at startup, why are you advocating useless starts every two weeks?

I still maintain that even with the abuse that occurs and the fact that many of us are the third or fourth in a long line of POs of our boats, virtually none of us will ever wear out a diesel.

Xsbank said:

If 90% of your engine wear occurs at startup, why are you advocating useless starts every two weeks?

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Sorry, but this made laugh!!!! A good point! I personally use my boat enough not to worry about it.

Baker said:

So what is the difference in turning the engine over with the starter versus turning it over while the cylinders are firing??? You are still turning the UNoiled engine whether it is the starter or the result of combustion. I used to use this method to preheat the engine when there was no preheat available(fuel spray further cools the combustion chamber).

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Lots more suck squeeze bang blow before the oil gets to the sensitive pieces. Gentle turning over is a lot less wear and tear.

oscar said:

See my previous post.... looks like not a lot, and I love the oil change side bennie...

http://www.cpperformance.com/instructions/755-7050.pdf

That said, getting to the drain plug can be a challenge in some installs.

Click to expand...

There are other ways to pre-oil as well.

Canton Racing Products - Accusump Tech

Interesting...... While we can debate the benefits of pre oiling, it certainly won't hurt.

Heck if you really want to get the most out of your oil system, get a pre-oiler, add small micron bypass oil filters, use synthetic oil and only change it based on fluid analysis.

You may not change your oil for years.

Capt.Bill11 said:

Heck if you really want to get the most out of your oil system, get a pre-oiler, add small micron bypass oil filters, use synthetic oil and only change it based on fluid analysis.

You may not change your oil for years.

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Depending on use. Trawlers more so than sail boats. They often run for 15 minutes to get out of the hole and back in. Murder on the engine(s). Running for hours is, no doubt better.

Ski in NC said:

Lehmans are in a unique category in that the oil is sea water cooled. The oil temp runs WAY cooler than the desired 100C. Add to that most trawlers run at light load and that keeps oil cool also. With cool oil, moisture from combustion can build up and not cook off.

I have personally seen engines damaged from moisture buildup in oil. Corrosion on valve gear. Bearings pitted from corrosion. Oil samples showed no Na, so neither sea water nor coolant entering.

If I owned a FL or other engine with sea water oil cooling, I would change the oil before layup.

In the yard if a garden hose is available, just put the hose in the strainer and run engine til warm. Change the oil and run it a few minutes longer. Then run some antifreeze through the strainer to get some freeze protection.

Richard- If you are not going to change the oil, look in the oil fill hole in the rocker cover and note the condition of the metal rockers/shafts/springs: If shiny grey metal with a coating of dark oil, your engine does not have a moisture problem in the oil. If there is any hue of rust color, engine has moisture in the lube, or has in the past, and I would definitely change it.

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Always appreciate your solid voice of experience, Ski.

Could you address how to fog a Lehman? The metal under my valve cover is shiny, but the boat's been sitting on blocks since summer and I'm wondering if I should try to "fog" the valve train. Starting my engines won't be an option for awhile, but the engines only have about 10 hours on them since the last change.

angus99 said:

Always appreciate your solid voice of experience, Ski.

Could you address how to fog a Lehman? The metal under my valve cover is shiny, but the boat's been sitting on blocks since summer and I'm wondering if I should try to "fog" the valve train. Starting my engines won't be an option for awhile, but the engines only have about 10 hours on them since the last change.

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If top end metal is in good condition, no need to fog or do anything.

Originally Posted by Baker...
So what is the difference in turning the engine over with the starter versus turning it over while the cylinders are firing??? You are still turning the UN-oiled engine whether it is the starter or the result of combustion.

Reply by Oscar...
Lots more suck squeeze bang blow before the oil gets to the sensitive pieces. Gentle turning over is a lot less wear and tear.

My annoying query...
Yes, but looking at how many revs my FL 120 needs to get the oil pressure up and the buzzer off, does it ever really get enough oil up to matter just turning it over at starter motor speed..? I very much doubt it, and I used to be an advocate of the 'turn-over-without-actually-starting' tactic.

Running it up to temp for a while every few weeks at least flushes everything else out and allows a check for leaks, belt issues, etc. Doing this one time I found raw water squirting out of a cracked (corroded) tranny oil cooler join. Turning over without starting would never have exposed that because you are at the helm, pushing the stop button, and the revs are so slow no water is really circulating with any pressure. (Like the oil, actually) When leaving the dock, especially with guests on board, one might well not spot that sort of thing because of the need often to lift floors or hatches, with landlubber mishaps then possible.

"If top end metal is in good condition, no need to fog or do anything."

Agreed , seldom does rust on the valves or valve seats get so bad they do not seal in use.I have seen valve springs get so rusty (Volvo) that the snapped in use.

Fogging is mostly to keep the cylinder walls from rusting and potting.

Sealing the intake and exhaust from moisture would be ideal , but is seldom done as the exhaust is a PIA.

"Running it up to temp for a while every few weeks at least flushes everything else out and allows a check for leaks, belt issues, etc. Doing this one time I found raw water squirting out of a cracked (corroded) tranny oil cooler join"

The problem is diesels idle very efficiently so bringing some of the coolant up to a gauge reading has not warmed the engine .

Operating UNDER LOAD is the only real way to get the engine and lubricants up to operating temperature.Always a great idea.

This is a far better idea than ideling in the slip, even in gear.

Thanks, guys.

One of the deficiencies of the Lehman is it uses an oil filter without a check valve. When you shut off, almost all the oil draind back in the sump. I corrected my Lehman by up-ending the filter, mounting it like a cup so the oil wouldn't drain. The result was much quicker oil pressure on startup and much less mess when changing the filter.

JDCAVE said:

With engines that had sat while unused, Bob Smith recommended holding down the stop button while starting for 10 seconds, stopping and waiting a minute, doing that again, waiting a minute and then starting the engine normally. He said that process was to oil the engine.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

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Yes, I do that. Even if not run for a few days, I hold stop button for a minute or until I get bored, whichever comes first, usually about 10 seconds

Clearly the oil is hotter inside the engine, but when I check the temperature at the oil filter, it's consistently 155F, transmission 127, top of radiator 158, stuffing box varies.

I'm not going to worry about it anymore.

Xsbank said:

One of the deficiencies of the Lehman is it uses an oil filter without a check valve. When you shut off, almost all the oil draind back in the sump. I corrected my Lehman by up-ending the filter, mounting it like a cup so the oil wouldn't drain. The result was much quicker oil pressure on startup and much less mess when changing the filter.

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X-bank,
That's a good one needs to be seen agian IMO.

FF said:

Operating UNDER LOAD is the only real way to get the engine and lubricants up to operating temperature.Always a great idea.

This is a far better idea than ideling in the slip, even in gear.

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I agree. On the advice of acquaintances in the marine diesel industry we run our engines in the slip if we haven't had a chance to actually take the boat out for four or five weeks. We run the engines one at a time to so we don't over-strain the docklines. After a brief warmup we put them in gear and take them up to 1400-1500 rpm. This gets the coolant temperature up to it's normal cruise reading and gets a decent temperature on the EGT. We hold them there for about 30 minutes and then bring them down to idle for a couple of minutes and shut them off.

As to the notion of turning an engine on the starter with the fuel shut off to distribute oil before firing the engine, I think the theory is fine but the reality is that it doesn't accomplish much or anything in terms of the longevity of the engine. If this was truly a valuable thing to do then every vehicle and reciprocating aircraft engine on the planet would incorporate some sort of mechanism to do this automatically. None do, so far as I know.

I can see where a proper pre-lube system can be valuable or even essential under some operating conditions or situations. The RNLI in the UK keeps their boats ready to go to full throttle immediately upon launch down the rails or departing the pier by circulating coolant through the engines 24/7/365 that is heated to operating temperature. However I'm not aware that they use any sort of pre-lube system prior to startup.

But spinning a normal engine under normal circumstances on the starter to build up oil pressure before starting does not seem to be an important consideration to the folks who make engines for vehicles, planes, etc. I suspect an engine will eventually deteriorate to the point of needing an overhaul for some other reason long before whatever wear that occurs during an engine start becomes a factor.

I don't buy into the big time wear at start-up theory.

If that was true why would perfectly good engineers install a self draining oil filter on an engine? They wouldn't. The residual oil film is plenty of lube protection for start up.

However for some peace of mind I will crank my engine three times for 7-8 seconds w a two minute rest period when my engine hasn't been started for well over a month. Otherwise I just start-r-up. And w my glow plugs it starts almost instantly.

And again road vehicles benefit from milti-vis oil because they are exposed to cold temps. Not so on boats 99% of our trawlers never see temps below 50 degrees prior to starting. No use for MV oil.

And for those that think MV oil gives more oil flow at startup consider the fact that oil pumps are positive displacement pumps. X number of revolutions = X volume of fluid pumped. And lube oils are not compressible to my knowledge.

If 90% of wear occurs at startup, my diesel VW car should be worn out. I start it a few to maybe 8 times a day and have done so for 15 years and 230k miles. So average 4 starts a day. That is 21,900 starts. As far as I know, engine is still in good shape. Runs great, clean oil sample. So I don't buy it either. There is enough oil film keeping bearings wet for the start, it begins in boundary lube and that is fine until full hydrodynamic film gets formed. Not sure if the terms are right, it's been a long time since tribology class!!

I don't like rolling engines on starters to build oil pressure. Many pumps barely pump at all at that speed and you are just prolonging the boundary lube phase. Just start it.

Had an interesting case with prelube. This guy set it up himself and was super proud. A year later a fitting blew off his rig and alarm did not work. He toasted the Cat. I recommended he take both off while rebuilding that engine, he did. All ok afterward.

Ski in NC. That's nothing, think of every UPS truck with a Cummins B series in it. They shut the motor off at Every stop. Also many stationary stand by generators are run/cycled on timers, weekly/monthly spool right up to 1800 from cold, and last for years/decades. It is unlikely most here would see any effects from starting engines that have sat for a month or 2. The way you guys talk about these engines you would think they are make out of glass!

Xsbank said:

One of the deficiencies of the Lehman is it uses an oil filter without a check valve. When you shut off, almost all the oil draind back in the sump. I corrected my Lehman by up-ending the filter, mounting it like a cup so the oil wouldn't drain. The result was much quicker oil pressure on startup and much less mess when changing the filter.

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Not sure how effective they are but my filters for my Lehman (remote oil filter but that is what American Diesel contends is standard) have an anti drainback valve.

Purolator 30001 on the remote filter adapter.

So does the FL-1A Ford filter.

Probably why they don't care how you mount the remote mount. My filters are always full of oil when I remove them.

manyboats said:

I don't buy into the big time wear at start-up theory.

If that was true why would perfectly good engineers install a self draining oil filter on an engine? They wouldn't. The residual oil film is plenty of lube protection for start up.

However for some peace of mind I will crank my engine three times for 7-8 seconds w a two minute rest period when my engine hasn't been started for well over a month. Otherwise I just start-r-up. And w my glow plugs it starts almost instantly.

And again road vehicles benefit from milti-vis oil because they are exposed to cold temps. Not so on boats 99% of our trawlers never see temps below 50 degrees prior to starting. No use for MV oil.

And for those that think MV oil gives more oil flow at startup consider the fact that oil pumps are positive displacement pumps. X number of revolutions = X volume of fluid pumped. And lube oils are not compressible to my knowledge.

Click to expand...

There is no residual oil film. That's the point. Dry engine, that's when the wear occurs. Seems elementary to me but it is just an opinion.

Ski in NC said:

If 90% of wear occurs at startup, my diesel VW car should be worn out. I start it a few to maybe 8 times a day and have done so for 15 years and 230k miles. So average 4 starts a day. That is 21,900 starts. As far as I know, engine is still in good shape. Runs great, clean oil sample. So I don't buy it either. There is enough oil film keeping bearings wet for the start, it begins in boundary lube and that is fine until full hydrodynamic film gets formed. Not sure if the terms are right, it's been a long time since tribology class!!

I don't like rolling engines on starters to build oil pressure. Many pumps barely pump at all at that speed and you are just prolonging the boundary lube phase. Just start it.

Had an interesting case with prelube. This guy set it up himself and was super proud. A year later a fitting blew off his rig and alarm did not work. He toasted the Cat. I recommended he take both off while rebuilding that engine, he did. All ok afterward.

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Engines repeatedly started in the same day do not have a chance to become dry of all oil. This "idea" about dry start engine wear is well-documeted. Ignoring this basic concept strikes me as wanting the facts to fit one's prejudice. Science, guys, science.

catalinajack said:

This "idea" about dry start engine wear is well-documeted. Ignoring this basic concept strikes me as wanting the facts to fit one's prejudice. Science, guys, science.

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AGREE...

Can anyone cite a study that concludes no significant wear at start????

Lots that support the wear theory.

Is this another case of opinions stronger than facts????

Don
'08 MS 34HT
"Bacchus"

Also...
Yanmar recommends start w fuel stop after long sitting.

Where are all those that swear by what the mfg recommends as gospel??

Don

psneeld said:

Not sure if this has any value....but my engine runs as cool as I am comfy with...say in the 160s at low RPMs and new one 180 at my faster cruise setting.

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Same here. Sometimes wonder if my JD 4045 engine runs too cool at 170 degrees F (coolant temperature). No concerns expressed from my engine mechanic, however. Change oil once a year while averaging 125 hours annually, operating year-round, usually at least twice a month.

The whole discussion of dry starts is thin air until you discuss time the engine is sitting and It begs what type of oil is being used ....so you can determine if the right amount of oil film required to protect the parts still there or not.

catalinajack said:

There is no residual oil film. That's the point. Dry engine, that's when the wear occurs. Seems elementary to me but it is just an opinion.

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So why do no vehicle or reciprocating airplane engines incorporate this kind of "spin it before starting it" technology? You would think if "dry" starting an engine, even after a prolonged period of non use, however you define that (week? month? three months?) was truly detrimental to an engine the manufacturers would be all over it. But not a peep.

I have yet to own a vehicle-- VW, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Range Rover, BMWs, Ford pickups, Subaru, Toyota--- where the manual said to spin the engine before starting regardless of any non-use interval. Hell, it's not even possible on any of these vehicles unless you disconnect something under the hood.

None of the operating manuals for Lycoming, Continental, or Pratt & Whitney powered aircraft I fly or have flown say a word about spinning the engine over with the starter with no fuel if the engine had been sitting for awhile, and it's quite easy to do this with an airplane.

One of my co-workers has a Chevy Blazer he bought new that now has 350,000 miles on it. He has the oil changed "when he thinks of it." So far the only major work the vehicle has needed was the transmission overhaul he had done the other week. If start-up engine wear was such a major bugaboo his engine should have crapped out ages ago.

So while I don't doubt that "engine wear" is at it's greatest at initial startup, I think it's a matter of degree.

Now there very well may be some kinds of engines in which pre-lube is very important. But it sure doesn't seem to be important to the typical automotive engine. And most of the engines powering the kinds of boats most of us have are nothing more than marinzed automotive engines. So if Engine-X will go for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles in a truck with no problems without any pre-start spin-up, what changes when you stick a mariniziing kit on it and bolt it to the inside of a boat? How come now it's suddenly so important to spin it over with the starter before feeding it fuel and letting it start?

Seems to me this is another one of those solutions that's in search of a problem.

Settle yourself Richard,
Most oils changes are at 500 hour intervals, all the oil that's in there has been filtered a zillion times by circulation through the filter while the engines been running. The reason for not leaving it in is chemical, it won't do it any harm to leave it in but it's preferable to change it, it can be changed cold without problems, the only reason to heat it is to make it easier to pump.
Fill it back up with good quality oil to the full mark on the dipstick, this level will go down when you start again in spring. Leave a post it note on the ignition switch to check the oil level once the engine has been run for 5 minutes in the spring.
If you need local help outside the boat yard if you go over the bridge to the marina facing you and ask any berth holders for John Dimond's phone number, he's a lovely guy, full of local knowledge and very helpful.
I know you like your Danish and you can get them freshly baked over in Lidl.
take care my friend,
Geoff & Evelyne.