| Home made APU |
| 03-12-2017, (Subject: Home made APU ) Post: #13 | |||
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RE: Home made APU (03-12-2017 )barf Wrote: I put an APU on this truck when I bought it new, 9 years ago. The APU has over 12,000 hours on it. It died on me just before Christmas, just after I spent $450 on some service and an oil change on it. I found a generator on a boxing day special for $400. It may be an economical way to go, but what a pain in the ass! I miss my APU. We always hated walking across a parking lot with a gas can. Especially when shut down a couple days due to a blizzard, it freezing cold outside. We also got flack from other truckers about the fumes. it is no different from running an APU as far as fumes go, but it is a different smell, and other trucks sitting next to us would complain sometimes just because it was a different smell that they are not used to. I don't blame them one bit, so we always kept running it to a minimum. ======== We now have the APU and have had it for many hundreds of thousands of miles. I have in-framed my truck engine and the results of not idling at all are on youtube for all to see. We paid $8,000 installed (it was a re-man unit), and have spent our share of money replacing compressors and belts and fixing leaky hoses, etc. on it over the years. Here is my thoughts on it... A factory stock CM871 will typically use about 40 mg./stroke fuel at idle. A truck with MM in it only using about 12-15 mg/stroke at idle. Ruynning the RPM up at 750 produces enough oil pressure to keep everything lubed well, and adding a gallon of gear lube helps reduce wear too. So... A factory stock truck with only 15-40 oil pulling 40 mg/stroke all the time, sucking soot nonstop and wearing the engine out -- APU is much better to have. You are killing your engine and the overhead cams by idling one this way all the damn time. If your one of those who runs an EGR soot-sucking engine that is hell bent on destroying itself, and using regular oil, cams getting plugged up and soot packed, etc. factory 40 mg/stroke -- An APU and a bypass oil system is its only savior long term. For this situation, the cost is a good investment. == A MM truck sipping minimal fuel, shimmed oil pump, a gallon of gear lube, -- YOu would not be able to justify the cost of an APU at all. Hell just the maintenance costs on the APU over the years is more than the wear and diff in fuel costs. I cannot justify the cost of an APU at all when the truck is set up this way. It is flat-out an expense, and if it is engine longevity you are concerned with,.. well my own engine after the same 950k miles, even if the wear was 40% more, would still not justify it. -- I simply don't see it as a benefit at all to have an APU if someone has MM, has a shimmed pump, and is using gear lube in the engine. Not even for the reason of extending engine life. I DO HOWEVER think that if you have one, it is a luxury that becomes hard to live without. The electrical power is nice to have and the A/c is nice too, but those things can be done on the main engine with a bigger alternator and keeping the truck A/C in good shape. - Looking back at it all, I would not have purchased the APU, but would have idled the truck a lot more instead. I would however have a small generator for those times when i only wanted to power up my laptop, etc. while sitting, or perhaps would have added extra batteries to the truck for that reason, but NOT an APU. That is just my own thoughts on it. User's Signature: ->: What I post is just my own thoughts and Opinions! --- I AM Full Of S__T!. | |||
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