[TheForge] costs of ownership question

[Andrew Vida]

Oops... missed the diesl part.... mild concussion will do that.

Rebuild a diesel after only 500 hours of operation?  That is insane. 
Five THOUSAND hours would be more in line with normal and even then it 
really depends on the conditions.  Natural gas-fired diesels could 
conceivably last forever. 1/2 :)

If you have to revuild a diesel after only 500 hours I can think of 
several factors including improper sizing for the role, incredibly harsh 
operating environment, improper maintenance, shit for fuel, inept 
rebuild, and so on.  Rebuilding a diesel is not like doing so with a gas 
engine.

If your sleeves are going that bad that rapidly, either the people 
rebuilding your engines are doing it wrong, which is very possible, or 
something undiscovered is fucked in the engine.  I would opt for #1 as a 
likely cause.  It is not terribly difficult to louse up a diesel 
rebuild.  For example, in the old 71-series Detroits the liners had to 
be concentric and square to a tenth (0.0001") in order to be right. 
That is pretty tight, especially on a jug that large.  For a give 
output, diesels are significantly more highly stressed and must, 
therefore, be significantly more precisely mechanicked.

Unless your engines are inhaling acids or strong caustics they should 
run for years on a build.

On 9/11/2012 4:45 AM, terry l. ridder wrote:
> hello;
>
> what do others use as part of their decision making process when
> deciding that the cost of maintenance[1] of a piece of equipment has reach
> the point of searching for a replacement piece of equipment that has a
> lower maintenance cost[1]?
>
> preventing corrosion by painting, oiling, coating with spray on coatings
> like pickup bed liners i do not consider part of the cost of
> maintenance. that falls under "normal wear and tear"
>
> having to rebuild an auxilary diesel engine every 500 hrs I consider
> excessive. by rebuilding i mean pulling out the cast iron sleeves and
> have to install new ones because the sleeves have worn unevenly causing
> the cast iron sleeve to become more oval in shape internally. this is
> causing a serious lose of compression. machining the cast iron sleeves
> is not an option since the amount of machining required results in a
> cast iron sleeve bore for which oversized pistons, rings, etc are not
> available.
>
> right now at any given time one of the auxilary diesel engine is in a
> state of being rebuilt. this time and money, could and should be spent
> elsewhere or saved.
>
>
> [1] maintenance cost: both time and money.
>