Agree that the cost of diesel saved is miniscule though it can add up over
the years.

I guess that on the typical pleasure boat the biggest saving is in effort
and perhaps mess. Lugging around five gallon cans of used oil from the
engine room through the salon (or ?) to the finger pier to the main pier
yada, yada could get tiresome.

On towboats and larger, however the overall labor, disposal, etc. savings
can be considerable. Those EMDs, KTAs, Cats, FBM, etc. larger diesels hold
considerable oil in the crankcases. 55 gallon drums are the oil containers
of choice on those big boys.

Butch
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:10:52 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:

Now come the flames, no?

No, not from me. It's an emotional thing.

After spending over two years getting my tanks and fuel halfway clean
to the point where I'm no longer clogging filters every 10 hours or
so, I'm very reluctant to rock the boat, so to speak.

Fortunately used oil is easy/free to recycle around here and I'm
confident that it gets put to some useful purpose. The cost of diesel
fuel saved is really pocket change in the grand scheme of things.

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:39:02 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:

On towboats and larger, however the overall labor, disposal, etc. savings
can be considerable. Those EMDs, KTAs, Cats, FBM, etc. larger diesels hold
considerable oil in the crankcases. 55 gallon drums are the oil containers
of choice on those big boys.

No doubt. I assume they are burning their used oil? Do they use the
Racor blender or something similar?

Wayne,

The Racor is essentially a hose, a pump, and a filter. On larger boats
they usually make up a system using a suitable pump, hard piping, ball
valves, check valves and a suitable filter (sometimes a duplex). This
allows them to use the same system to refill the crankcases from drums.

They burn the oil along with the fuel. The lube oil, BTW, acts as a tiny
fuel booster as it has more BTU content than DF-2, or so the big boys tell
me.

These boats also have twin generator sets one of which is always running.
However, the engines are so small that the oil is usually changed the old
fashioned way.

A point of interest is that the oil on the larger diesels is usually changed
based upon the recommendation of the oil analysis lab. Most engine oil is
changed much more often than nesessary if based upon a set number of hours,
miles or days.

Butch
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:39:02 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:

On towboats and larger, however the overall labor, disposal, etc. savings
can be considerable. Those EMDs, KTAs, Cats, FBM, etc. larger diesels
hold
considerable oil in the crankcases. 55 gallon drums are the oil
containers
of choice on those big boys.

No doubt. I assume they are burning their used oil? Do they use the
Racor blender or something similar?

On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:06:18 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:

A point of interest is that the oil on the larger diesels is usually changed
based upon the recommendation of the oil analysis lab. Most engine oil is
changed much more often than nesessary if based upon a set number of hours,
miles or days.

That makes a lot of sense for engines that are running nearly
continuously. It only takes 4 days to get to 100 hours in that kind
of service. There are times when I will do 100 hours in a week, and
others when I won't do that in 6 months.

Wayne,

Oil analysis could be useful in your situation if based upon intervals based
upon days.

Many dealers offer the service locally. Cat & Cummins come to mind but I'm
sure DDA and others do it as well. If interested contact a dealer and see
if they will recommend a program for your engines. Probably won't save you
much $$ but may provide some peace of mind and save you some unecessary
work.

Merry Christmas!

Butch
"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:06:18 GMT, "Butch Davis"
wrote:

A point of interest is that the oil on the larger diesels is usually
changed
based upon the recommendation of the oil analysis lab. Most engine oil is
changed much more often than nesessary if based upon a set number of
hours,
miles or days.

That makes a lot of sense for engines that are running nearly
continuously. It only takes 4 days to get to 100 hours in that kind
of service. There are times when I will do 100 hours in a week, and
others when I won't do that in 6 months.