Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with my friendly gunsmith who also teaches diesel mechanics at a local college.This area up here in NE Minnesota is iron ore mining (Iron Range) and logging country. Both industries use a lot of heavy duty diesel equipment in the worst of weather conditions.
The subect of pre-lubers came up and my friend brought up an interesting concept. He said some of the mining equipment have pre-lub pumps mounted on the back of their starter motors. The way I understand it, the starter motor turns in one direction to engage the pre-lub pump and in the opposite direction to engage the starter. It would probably be extremely difficult for a hobbyist to engineer something like this BUT, it's a brilliant concept.
He cautioned about welding on an oil pan saying they are bad about cracking and recommended silver solder.
We also discussed the concept of drilling into an oil pan without removoing it from the block. He said they do it all the time and have done so for years. He said if you're concerned about shavings, insert a magnet through the hole after drilling to pick up any shavings. He said if you're really worried, simply flush five gallons of kerosene through the system.
I'm submitting this in hopes that idea overload will help one of the Steel Soldiers members come up with a solution (before winter) that I can buy.
Happy Tinkering
