Marine diesel 4,000 hour service interval

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Cummins has an interesting set of addon devices that they say enable 4,000 hour service intervals on some of their marine, and I suppose other, diesel engines. They are:

-Centinel which is an integrally plumbed oil system that burns a potion of the in-service lube oil and replaces it with new incrementally over time.

-Prelube with QuikEvac which stores oil under pressure while running and prelubes on restart (ala Accusump). As the name suggests it also quickly removes the sump contents (presumably at the 4,000 hour point, I'm guessing).

-Eliminator which has a 20 micron full flow stainless steel non-replaceable filter allied withva centrifugal separator to remove the rest. Thus, no throwaway filters.I

All three are used in combination to reach the aforementioned 4,000 hour interval "when used with an approved oil sampling program".

https://cumminsengines.com/marine-eliminator

And then look down on the right side of the page for the other accessories.
 
My FIL and I were just discussing OCIs. He mentioned many boat captains are on a 7 day change cycle which is around 100 hours. That's the 500ish shp diesels on sport fishing boats. Running 40 or15w-40.

4000 hours is a long time. Like roughly a full year of 12hr days.
 
At roughly the same as 24000 miles at 60mph that seems very reasonable, especially with bypass filtration and TBN replenishment. Long haul truckers go as far, or farther, on OCIs.
 
Originally Posted By: Kuato
At roughly the same as 24000 miles at 60mph that seems very reasonable, especially with bypass filtration and TBN replenishment. Long haul truckers go as far, or farther, on OCIs.
more like 240k?
 
I assume they must just have a large remote engine oil reservoir and the system adds and removes oil automatically. Not a bad idea compared to weekly changes with a normal sized sump. Plus they burn just mix the old oil in with the fuel, which makes a lot of sense.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Originally Posted By: Kuato
At roughly the same as 24000 miles at 60mph that seems very reasonable, especially with bypass filtration and TBN replenishment. Long haul truckers go as far, or farther, on OCIs.
more like 240k?


Math FAIL.

Thanks for the correction, disregard my previous post....
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
My FIL and I were just discussing OCIs. He mentioned many boat captains are on a 7 day change cycle which is around 100 hours. That's the 500ish shp diesels on sport fishing boats. Running 40 or15w-40.

4000 hours is a long time. Like roughly a full year of 12hr days.


Wow, that really is often. I wonder if that's supported/indicated by analysis or is simply "good practice" as defined by the small business/entrepreneurial boat captains who would be out the $200-300K for a repower? It's easy to see that those boats are run hard and with a lot of gear changing. So I further wonder if those 100 hour intervals are for the transmissions (TwinDisc, ZF, others)? Also, while I have no experience with them, aren't the
sportfishers usually very high powered? Very.
 
Our typical small boat (under 65 feet) diesel engine program when I worked for NOAA was OCI at 500 hours with UOA. Since I serviced the boats in my group, or oversaw the service, we did 250 hours. That was mostly CAT 3208T at 240 to 315 HP spinning 2,850 all day every day for 8 hours. They were not rated for 2,850 continuous, but pushing Hamilton Jets drives means you need RPM, so that's what they ran.

10,000 hour inspections for OH. Most went 15,000 hours before an in-frame OH.

The Detroits OTOH, got the full 500 hour intervals and seemed to run until the Sahara would freeze. Of course they changed oil into the bilge underway and required diapers, so not a fair comparo
laugh.gif


If I had a big enough boat with twin Cummins and enough room, I'd run the program (and accessories) as stated, but I'd be sampling at every 1,000 hours ... That kind of filtration and in-time replenishment is a good system. You just need to stay on top of it in case something goes off the rails ...
 
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