Lube finders

[Randy mckinney]

I have heard some oldtimers talk about lube finders so here is my dumb questions what do they do? How do they work? Are they worth having? Can they be installed on any engine?

[2stacksuperdog]

Do you mean Lube Refiners?

[rsb502]

LuberFiner? its an external oil filter mounted on the drivers side of most trucks when used, a lot of older Pete, KW and Freightliners had Luberfiner external oil filters. They were designed to add oil capacity and an external high capacity oil filter to extend oil change intervals and reduce oil contamination and soot/sludge build up in the engine. I have pulled a few off of trucks for people due to the lack of parts and high cost of replacement after they are rusted and dinged up but have never run one myself. Heres a couple pics, both on Peter 359's

[Randy mckinney]

Sounds to me like there a pain in the obama! Extra oil cap. More $ at every oil change. How much do they extend intrvales.

[theakerstwo]

They were a partial/flow by/pass and was need on old engines. But newer engines do not need them.But it would help keep the oil cleaner if you used one.Better than that a spinner 2 is better than the luber finer.The newer engines have better filters than older engines.Alot of the mack engines used a filter like the spinner 2 which is call centimax along side of the two full flow filters.These are a centerfuge spinner.

[thomastractorsvc]

My Mack B61 has one but it is mounted under the hood on the side of the engine, just an old school oil filter set up. It is a canister type filter set up nothing real fancy mine holds about 2.5 gallons of oil.

[j hancock]

My B75 had one mounted between the fender and the fuel tank. Now has three spin on filters.

[farmer52]

Spin on (2 filters with Centrimax) is the way to go = full flow filtration. Freightrain converted his B to spin on and can tell you what is involved.

As was mentioned, the Luberfiner by-pass filter is an "easy" way to extend oil drain interval (ODI) (increased oil capacity) with some added filtration. Mack offered the ESI+ which was an increased capacity oil pan which also increased ODI.

[FayettesFinest]

The 237 in our R has one of these contraptions. Oil is expensive so we'll probably do away with it, lol

[HarryS]

...It is a canister type filter set up nothing real fancy mine holds about 2.5 gallons of oil.

Can you still get the filter elements for these?

[thomastractorsvc]

Yes Napa, Car Quest, Oreillys probably any place that has parts or can order them. I buy my standard filters from FleetFilter.com for the year they have them to.

[rsb502]

Supposedly you could add 50% to your service interval, if you change your oil every 10k that means it would go to 15k, so if it added 2 gallons to a std truck you would be at 48qts and 1 more filter element, but you would get 5000 more miles to a service for the extra $30-$40. Math time, lets see if oil was $10/gal(I know it isn't anymore) that's $100 for oil for a std service plus a $40 filter kit, that's a $140 service with no labor, divided by 10k that's .014 cents a mile, add 2 more gallons of oil to get $120 for oil and another $10 filter for a total of $170 divided by 15k that's .0113/mile, make sense now? Oh and add to that cooler oil temps due to the added oil and the heat loss in the external tank and lines and the reduced heat stress on bearings and seals because of the lower oil temp and it made sense to do on older engines. Now that filtration has evolved and with Mack using the Centrimax filters from the E7 on up and the changes in oil ratings and abilities the added cost and the bottom line gets a little different. I would guess that the engines in service today and the oil available to use in them has made any meaningful service life change a moot point. However if you were to use one of the spinners on a new engine not equipped with one the added oil and filtration capability, coupled with the extra soot and particulates in the newer engines from EGR and it may be well worth it even on a std service interval, only oil analysis would tell the whole story.