This is the dream of many a diesel technician, a clean, quick oil change. This video shows one such system at work, which featured in a series of stories which have appeared in Diesel Workshop in recent weeks about the workshop at Blenners Transport in Tully in North Queensland.
Blenners’ shuttle trucks running up and down the East Coast on staged runs are doing the most kilometres, well over 330,000 km each year. The line haul trucks heading over long distances to other destinations do a little less, at around 280,000 km each year.
Running at these kinds of numbers means the maintenance team need to keep on top of the game and minimise any breakdowns. Most of the trucks will return to Tully every seven to ten days, although the road trains to Perth have a 12 day turnaround.
“We use oil sampling 100 per cent of the time for all prime movers,” says John McKnight, Blenners Fleet Maintenance Manager. “We sample at every B service, when the oil is dropped. We do the sample through our ESOC (Environmentally Safe Oil Capture) device.
“We have two of these machines and we connect them using fast fill connectors fitted to inlet and drain points, they are fitted to every engine in the fleet, including fridge motors. We connect to the fast fill connectors and it drains all of the oil out under suction. It will purge the filters ready to be changed. Then it will prime the oil filter and fill the compartment up to the appropriate level, automatically.