Extend Engine Life Through Filtration

Road Machinery, a distributor in Arizona and New Mexico, set up a mining customer, BHP Billeton, with the PuraDYN system to solve a contamination issue. This was a severe application, and based on oil analysis the oil had to be changed every 300 hours. "The oil samples they were getting were just so ugly, it was time to change the oil," recalls Eric Hirengren, Road Machinery.

After Road Machinery installed the PuraDYN system, BH Billeton was able to extend its oil drain intervals out to 900 hours. "I am comfortable that they can go 1,500 hours, but they are happy with what they have done," says Hirengren. "They are now doing one oil change where they would have done three oil changes."

The maintenance procedure is pretty straightforward. "At the 300--hour interval, when they were normally doing the oil change, they change just the PuraDYN filter and add makeup oil," says Hirengren. Full--flow filters get changed when the oil gets changed.

The amount of wear particles in the oil has been dramatically reduced. "I get oil sample reports every time they do a sample," says Hirengren. "This will take the wear metals down to 1, 2 or even 3 ppm."

Payback was rather quick. "On these units out here at the mine, they paid for themselves by the time the second oil change was due," says Hirengren. "You have to figure the cost of the oil, the cost of your filters, your person's time that is doing the service and then getting rid of the waste oil."

Waste oil disposal can be a challenge. "You are generating far less waste oil," says Hirengren. "The EPA is noticing that they are not generating as much waste oil."

The potential oil savings are substantial. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conducted an ongoing study with the PuraDYN system on eight diesel engine buses. As of June 2004, the buses had travelled 473,192 miles without an oil change. This avoided 39 oil changes, which would have consumed 343 gal. of new oil and generated the same amount of waste oil. The report estimates that if all federal vehicles used this bypass filtration system, 1.7 million gal. of oil would be saved annually.

In the test, regular oil sampling was performed to ensure the oil met critical parameters and to determine the proper drain interval. The buses each averaged 69,946 miles on the unchanged oil. Since the regular service interval is 12,000 miles, the interval was extended 5.3 times.

If the oil drain interval was extended to four times, 80% of the regular oil changes could be avoided. The preliminary data suggests an 80% oil savings rate in heavy vehicles with the bypass filtration system.

Numbers like these are hard to ignore. You may be able to generate a lot less waste oil, increase uptime, save labor and save a lot on the purchase of new oil all at the same time with a minimal investment.