Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:12 am by cornbinder89
Like I said earlier, the only place I see a use in gen-sets that have to go from stationary to full speed without a warm up period.
I think it became a "thing to do" because someone discovered it was possible to spin the oil pump shaft on some engines. If it were real important, everyone would have "pre oiler" tanks, and force it in with compressed air.
Nothing harder on an engine than to go from stationary ( for a week at a time or more) to full load in seconds, but that is what gen-sets in hospitals can be called on to do. The ones I've been around have block heater and remote electric oil pumps to keep it pressurized and warm 24/7.
It is very rare to have a lube failure on an engine be the primary cause of engine failure. That is to say, if the engine had the correct level of oil and it is the type called for, it is rare to have the engine fail.
I have seen nylon cam gears fail and then "chips" from the cam gear make it into the oil pump and lock it after the cam gear was replaced, but that was due to not dropping the pan and cleaning out the debris. There it wasn't a lube failure but a mechanical failure due to debris in the pan
I've seen engine with real high hr on them, have low enough pressure to trip the light at low speed and still run for years.
The low oil pressure light on a Detroit diesel was set at 1-3 psi! They would live with that little pressure as long as there was flow.
I have an old engine that just has grease cups on the mains and rods!
Actually if you think about it from an engineering standpoint, the gear should be fixed to the oil pump (highest load) and the distributor could be key to the oil pump shaft as it is the lightest load, not the other way around. That way the strongest connection is to the highest load.