Originally Posted by Tikka
Hi Gents
That may well be a gross over simplification so I would appreciate some opinions Gents please
Many thanks
Tikka.
I'll give you some of my experience in industry on industrial equipment flushing but with the understanding that an IC engine is a slightly different animal with some unique circumstances that a gearbox, crusher or other equipment may not encounter.
This is with extensive experience as a consulting lubrication engineer designing equipment, lube programs including pre installation flushing, on and offline filtering/flushing, filtering, vacuuming/centrifuging of reservoirs and so forth. I've also had the benefit of monitoring a machine from commissioning to rebuild and reviewing PM and Pdm history then look at the guts.
Here is what I've seen over the years.
Flushing- if you do not have HIGH VOLUME at PRESSURE- you are not "flushing" anything. If you are not flushing then al you are doing is gently wetting and accomplishing little to nothing. If your "flushing" is nothing more than following the mechanical path, flow path to drain then you really didn't "flush" but about 20% of the guts and the remaining will quickly contaminate the new stuff when it gets agitated and splashed during operation.
I often have to remove access plates and use a variety of wands to clean the internals during a true flush- that takes time and more than one pass- the vehicle oil pump aint doing that. If you are not "flushing" all the nooks and crannies then I question the effectiveness or justification of the flush in the first place.
Varnishes and "stuff"- first, are they actually on a surface that harms anything? Then they almost always require either strong solvent chemical cleaning and mechanical action. Then you have to flush the flush ( several times usually) or risk damaging the new oil and even the equipment from oil breakdown.
If a "varnish remover" isn't aggressive enough to require several flushes then in my opinion its no better than maybe a quart of Kerosene- if it is then you use up all the savings flushing the flush before you put new oil in.
Excluding online filtration and sweetening maintenance, the true legitimate need for flushing any machine that is properly maintained ( making an exclusion for some machines in applications where this level of contamination cannot be avoided) is rare indeed and personally I don't recommend it.
My experience is when it gets to that level of need- its time for a rebuild.
Just my experience on this.