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Hour Meter for a Jeep Engine


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Most industrial and farm equipment  use hour meters to gauge engine services, etc.  Our 4x4 engines  have greater run time than miles.  Me thinks why not on the Scrambler?  New engine, so timely oil changes is important.  We do a lot of idling on trail, winching, welding, etc.. 

 

Looking at something like this, but maybe smaller

 

 

 
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What a great idea and premise, RareCJ8.  Dirt motorcycles and off-road/heavy equipment are always serviced by "hours run".  (No meter on a motorcycle, though, so this gets speculative.  Industrial, construction and ag equipment does use an hour meter.)  Your approach is accurate and, as you note, accounts for idling, rock crawling time and even the time you're onboard welding!

 

If you hook to an ignition/run time lead that feeds only when the engine is running, you'll have a very accurate read on engine run time!  Keep us posted...

 

Moses

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Establish a "rule of thumb".  For a highway use model, I would use a 60 mph cruise speed baseline...3000/60 = 50 hours.  How's that sound?

 

Take into account usage and load.  Rock crawling at 10 mph all summer would certainly warrant an oil change!  Otherwise, you would be subjecting the engine to 300 hours of torture to accumulate "3000 miles", way too long between changes. 

 

If you're running synthetic oil, I've always changed Mobil 1 by the oil's coloration: mocha brown is time for a change.  Change the oil filter and oil at 50 hours maximum.  A new oil filter and top-off at 25 hours would make sense under severe driving conditions, with the full oil-and-filter change at no more than the 50 total hour point.  Filters are cheap insurance, a case of Mopar OE type oil filters would be practical. 

 

Moses

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You're welcome, RareCJ8!  Keep us posted, this hour meter idea makes great sense for a trail 4x4 vehicle.  I gazed at hour meters for years as a heavy equipment operator, and the meters provided a valuable tool.  Your lifeblood comment is real!   

s

Synthetic oil provides a wider margin of oil protection; however, the oil filter needs attention.  Many overlook the fact that an oil filter will bypass when clogged.  Factory recommended 7,500 mile oil change intervals with tiny oil filters makes no sense at all.  You cannot tell when the filter bypasses, so why run the risk?

 

On our vehicles with Mobil 1, which I started using in the early 'nineties, the oil color approach worked well.  Engines like the '87 Suburban K2500's 350 V-8 with TBI would easily go 10,000-12,000 miles (highway use) on a crankcase of Mobil 1 oil, with oil filter changes and top-off with Mobil 1 (replenishes the oil's additives in the process) each 3,000-3,500 miles.  On the carbureted '86 K2500 Suburban with Federal emissions and an unrestricted carburetor, the oil change interval would be much sooner when we pulled a trailer—more like an oil change right after each hard tow, according to oil color!  This, again, was determined by oil coloration, mocha to dark mocha being the limit.  I also used deeper "truck" application oil filters for added surface area and capacity.  (You could do this on small-block Chevy V-8s with the vertical oil filter design.)

 

That method worked for me.  Your hard trail use CJ8 Scrambler is a totally different scenario.  The hour meter is the only sensible monitor.

 

Moses

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