Prelube

[KOdegaard]

I have not seen anything on prelubing our CDT's before start up?

Anyone shed some light on this subject please.

KO

 

[R.E. Miller]

This depends on engine condition. Only old 855's needed to have the oil system pressurized before the first start as far as I know (please speak up diesel heads) At a minimum, I would remove the valve covers, and lubricate the overhead, and remove the oil feed to the turbocharger, and oil it's bearings. Prelubing is a great idea, Eastwood makes a great preluber that I am looking at installing on my truck. It requires no pumps or motors, just pressure. One thing you could rig up if you had the time and skill is a pressure tank with oil in it, feed on bottom air inlet on top, clean tank, pressure gauge, and hose long enough to reach your O/P sensor. Hit the tank with air after putting 15w/40 in it, and blast it into the engine at about 50psi, that will lube the cam, overhead, and theoretically the mains, the rods really need to spin in a "B" to get totally lubed, but that would put you in great shape



Russell

 

[Cooker]

There was a company that offered a prelube system for the Cummins in a Dodge application. From what I can remember it was a leaky PIA. I don't know if they are still around. The general consensus is that it is not necessary to prelube the 6BT. The biggest things to help with wear on startup would be to plug the block heater in at appropriate temps and run the correct grade oil for your given conditions.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I installed a pre-lube setup on my last truck. It's been marketed under a number of different names over the years. I think it was sales professionals when I bought it. To sum it up - it sucked. The pump on it lasted less than a year and a half and when I called them to buy a new pump for it the pump alone was $400 - which was what I paid for the entire system. A couple of TDR members back around 98-99 lost their engines due to the pre-luber because a line let go and dumped all their oil. You have to plumb a pickup line to the sump pump and then a return line feeding into the oil filter. There are instances of our engines going over 1,000,000 miles without a pre-luber - so is it necessary? On a freshly built engine I might do it but that's about it.



Moving this over to the products accessories forum for better exposure.

 

[y-knot]

The ideal is very sound and if done right, I am sure all diesel trucks would benefit from a pre-pressurized oiling system. I think the best thing one could do now, for a small amount of money, would be to use an oil accumulator. It uses the engines oil pump to pressurize the storage tank, and a simple Sidonnie open before start-up to pressurize the engine's oiling system.

I had one of those old pre-lubbers from Sales Professionals, total pia and the pump design was horrible, the pump and electric motor shared a common case, which meant the motor ran in the engine's oil. Not a great ideal, motors have carbon brushes, which wear and end-up in the engine's oil, also there was alot of winding material ending up there also.

I will be testing a accumulator for our trucks latter this spring.

 

[TnLRacing]

http://www.accusump.com/acc_products/acc_units.html



We have used this system on many of our circle track car with no problem at all

 

[pgleavitt]

I also had the marine version of the sales professionals brand on a 94 ford diesel and what a mess it made under the hood. I also went with the quick disconnect for oil changes. The pump leaked and very loud. Wouldn't do it again. If at all I would check out the accumulator method.

 

[evldsl]

If the pre-lubber is needed why did'nt the engine manifacture build it ?, Perhaps because it's not needed.

 

[dresslered]

I think that Fritz did a write up on it over at his site at one time. It is another one of those products that sounds neat in theory but is not necessary. As already suggested, as you add more components, your reliability goes down--even if done right.

 

[tmacc]

Ditto what Steve and y-nott experienced. Mine lasted just over a year. I did like the diconnect for changing the oil though. Just pumped it right into the re-cycling drum. IMHO if you just let the truck idle for a minute before starting out you should be in good shape. I always cringe when I hear some guy start his F/D/C deisel and imediately take off. Happens quite often when I'm at Home Depot.