Otter said:
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Good luck with your cobbled up collection of stuff, I will bet the shipping on the replacment engine alone will be more than the cost of a new preluber at retail prices.
Have fun swapping your engine when the collection of surplus fails.
eric
Otter, the vintage MV's are like large erector kits for grown-ups and we love to tinker with them, take them apart and put them back together in different configurations.
Buying something already assembled is a little like cheating, we often try to use parts around the garage to "cobble up" things.
Money is often a big issue. A new engine can be had for a few hundred bucks and buying a preluber for $200-300 is a lot of money to try to extend the life of an engine, which may not cost as much.
Another thing is that if it was truly a matter of needing these add-ons, we'd buy them. Very few of us really need these things, it's a hobby and most of the fun is discussing solutions and cobbling up solutions.
Who cares if the this engine gets 100,000 or 500,000 hrs of life when most may only get 1,000 or 2,000 over a period of 50 years.
Having breakdowns adds a flurry of activity on this forum. I myself am looking forward to dropping the oil pan and learning about rod bearings and plastigauges etc, all because fuel leaked into the engine oil.
Looking for parts is a big part of this hobby.
For people trying to make assemblies for sale, it too is mostly for fun since the market is microscopic and selling 3 or 4 units will never recover the cost of development.
The multifuel engine is one of few engines designed to military specifications and there is a challange to discover new things about it. It was designed for a lifespan of 20 years, and be ready to perform its job at any time in any climate. It was not designed for commercial hauling, which involves hundreds of thousands of miles on the road every year.
A preluber is a fun project to discuss, but really, who needs it? The UPS delivery man here starts and stops his truck engine more times in one day than I start and stop my engine in a full year.
....I still think a hand operated preluber might be a good thing for an engine that has been sitting for a long time....hmm