Re: [VACList] Motorhome engine replacement

["Jim Dunmyer" <jdunmyer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rik,
 Gerald and I were both conjecturing on possibilities of getting the MH to
your home so you could find a local mechanic to R&R and rebuild your engine.
Neither of us was all that serious (I know that *I* wasn't), and certainly
didn't recommend that you perform such a patch job and call it 'good'.

Regarding pre-lubers:

I feel that they're of little value on an engine that normally sits a week
or less. They might be worth-while on outfits that are idle a large
percentage of the time. Like your MH probably will be.

An alternative might be to run synthetic oil in the engine. I've heard that
they really stick to the surfaces for long periods of inactivity.

There was a discussion about prelubers on one of these forums a couple of
years ago, with a link to an outfit that manufactures them. The company used
a couple of adaptors to: get oil from the pan, and pump it into the oil
filter area. One of their claims to fame (IIRC) was their special check
valve to prevent the engine's oil pressure from simply backfeeding the
preluber and bypassing the engine. This is a potential trouble spot,
according to them.

Long ago, I saw a writeup on a preluber that used some sort of small
pressure vessel/accumulator, something like a propane cylinder. It had a
check valve and solenoid valve, so the engine itself would pump oil into it
while it was running; the check valve would hold the pressurized oil and the
solenoid valve would release it back to the engine just before cranking.
This seems like an elegant solution to me.

Another alternative would be to install a kill switch in the ignition system
to deacivate the spark. If you'd not used the rig for some time, you could
open the switch and crank the engine for 5 or 10 seconds, then close the
switch to start. It would be best if you could also prevent fuel from
flowing during that time, but that can be accomplished with a couple of
different methods, depending on whether the engine is fuel-injected or
carburated.

Again, if you use the rig every week, don't worry about a preluber. It would
be an excellent idea to try to figure out exactly why that one rod bearing
failed in the first place.

                                                                   <<Jim>>