Looking for recommendations here, the safe bet on oil and filter changes is always 250 hours right? I'm suggestion to my customer to sample at 250 and service at 500 as long as the samples are good. This is a Tier 3 engine in an application where it's not stressed or worked at more than about 50% of load most of the time and when it does work hard it might be for less than an hour at a time, clean fuel and a turbine precleaner on the intake. Driving hydraulic pumps for everything so not subjected to any intermittent peak loading like you might get with a mechanical drivetrain. Thoughts?
Yes, 250hr oil changes are the safe option. In the circumstances you describe, I personally would be OK with trying extending the drain period. Once the oil has ticked over 250hrs though, I would suggest sampling every 50hrs until you have established a trend and are confident that the oil can safely make it to 500.
The recommended interval for a JSC-prefix C-9 is 250 hours. If you plan on going beyond that then there is a protocol to follow. If you want a copy let me know. CM's idea of extending the change interval beyond 250 hours in 50-hour chunks based on oil sample results is a good one. Is it still working at altitude..? If so that is classed as Severe Service and oil & filter changes should be every 250 hours without fail using a good quality oil that meets at minimum API CI-4 specification. For more info about operating at altitude see Cat Special Instruction REHS3797 "Managing Engine Oil Service Intervals for Equipment Operating at High Altitude". Keep an eye on the soot levels in the oil (you may have to request it, it's not in the basic standard CAT oil analysis package). If they go much above 30-40% at the time of oil change then consider cutting the oil change period. From my experience oil analysis on the smaller C-Series engines (C13 and below) seemed to go fine up to a point then literally fell off a cliff within about a 20-hour time frame. On some of our engines that was right around the 280-300 hour mark but I will caveat that by saying that we were using high-sulphur fuel.
The circumstances that allow for the extended oil change interval seem a bit nebulous which is why I asked here, the fallback is 250 hours. Here's the serial number: JSC25381 I believe it came down from the mountain, it doesn't typically stay in one location for more than a week or two unless maybe it's a wind farm site.
Either way the Service Manual for JSC25381 says 250 hour oil changes, so the only way to increase the interval past 250 would be to follow the Extended Oil Change protocol. The problem would be that every time the machine moved from one job site to another then effectively you'd have to repeat the protocol again because the environment the engine is working in would have changed. Thinking about that my vote is to change oil/filter every 250 and have done with it.
Yep, probably best to stay on the safe side, I doubt these yahoos can be counted on to do oil samples, lol. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I'll suggest the sampling regimen though as an alternative. Thank you gentlemen!
if you want to prove it to them, try this as a financial justification. The engine takes 8 gallons of oil @ say $8/gall. A genuine Cat filter will cost $31, so total $100 give or take. So by changing the oil every 500 hours as you'd thought of doing would save you a grand total of a massive 20c/hour in operating costs over the 500 hour period ........
People are funny, when I was on the tug with D399's, as I recall it took a barrel of oil and twelve filter elements to do an oil service on both mains. They wanted to extend the oil service interval and I said sure, get me some sample kits and we'll sample them both every 50 hours and service when the lab says to. $30 the pair of samples, lol and they never would do it. Tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.... *sigh*