Lube skids- anyone use them?

[MrElectric03]

Hey everyone,

My company took away our lube truck and shipped it to another branch out of state back in April, they haven't used it since and we have been dying without it. They won't pay to ship it back to us and won't buy a lube truck.

I was wondering if anyone has used a lube skid. It looks basically like a platform with some small tanks on it for new and waste oils and all you do is connect air pressure to it. It seems like a good idea for med sized equipment and since we don't have bulk tanks in our shop we could also move it easily around our shop for services. I mostly wondering if there is anyone brand that we should stray away from or if you've found it's just a total waste of money and a lube truck makes more sense. Keep in kind we only do a max of 8-10 services per month though.

The problem I already know we will run into is that our trucks are heavy as is and those will put us overweight. My truck is a 26,000 gvw and sits at 25,000 in its normal state. With our higher ups we need to cross one bridge at a time though, I've been asking for 35K GVW trucks for a while now.

 

[AndrewC]

We've looked at it but we never did it, it seems like a good idea but you would have to keep the back of the truck clean to fit it in. I think setting up a trailer with tanks might be easier especially with the weight concerns. If you wanted to go cheap you could use a few drums for bulk tanks and waste tanks with an air diaphragm pump and fireball pumps for clean oil. You could set up a nice air manifold and hook your truck air to it.

 

[tool_king]

MrElectric03
I have one by lube mate that I run in my dodge 5500 service truck .It has two 25 gallon product tanks ,40 gallon waste tank .All pumps are mounted on skid.What company do you work ?

 

[Dualie]

I think having a trailer would be a better idea personally from the sounds of your operation

 

[MrElectric03]

Trailer would be great, however with or without a trailer we are still held to the same gvw.

Tool_king: I work for a dealer in Southern California.

AndrewC: I've made the suggestion of simply making small dollies for our 55g drums and a pencil pump but that too has fallen on deaf ears.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . MrElectric03. I don't quite understand the problem.

From your comment about "small dollies" I now take it you are talking about only eight or ten services a month in the shop.

I can't see where a lube truck/skid fits in with that scenario . . . for that little bit of oil I'd have thought a drum trolley and rotary/pint stroke hand pump would be the go.

Some times "wants" get confused with "needs". (he grins)

How are you doing it at the moment?

Cheers.

 

[Mike L]

I priced one a while back. two product tanks and a waste oil tank all air operated. don't remember the size but it was around $25000. I think maintainer made it. seemed like a welding shop could have built it way cheaper.

 

[Old Doug]

Yair . . . MrElectric03. I don't quite understand the problem.

From your comment about "small dollies" I now take it you are talking about only eight or ten services a month in the shop.

I can't see where a lube truck/skid fits in with that scenario . . . for that little bit of oil I'd have thought a drum trolley and rotary/pint stroke hand pump would be the go.

Some times "wants" get confused with "needs". (he grins)

How are you doing it at the moment?

Cheers.

I dont know if he needs a lube truck but i think it would save alot of time if he had a 2 pumps new and use oil. I work part time for 3 places that dont need some one full time doing mechanic work and servicesing. I have lots to do and when i am dumping oil in a engine by the gallon jug or dumping buckets of used oil in a drum i could be doing other things.I am going to make one place get me a cordless or air powered grease gun. Last week i was in a hury and greased a truck without stoping and i payed for it with my arm hurting for several days. I am old school to the bone but this is one area i need to come out of the stone age.

 

[rdr99]

Try a rechargeable grease gun...?

 

[MrElectric03]

Yair . . . MrElectric03. I don't quite understand the problem.

From your comment about "small dollies" I now take it you are talking about only eight or ten services a month in the shop.

I can't see where a lube truck/skid fits in with that scenario . . . for that little bit of oil I'd have thought a drum trolley and rotary/pint stroke hand pump would be the go.

Some times "wants" get confused with "needs". (he grins)

How are you doing it at the moment?

Cheers.

Sorry should have been a little more clear. Between shop and field(we are a crew of 8 field techs, no dedicated shop techs) we do 8-10 services per month. However the brass are on a big push to sell more pm agreements and they just greatly expanded our rental fleet. To top that every tier 4 machine we sell we take care of all services at 2000 hrs and under.. Our normally serviced machines range from 20 ton class excavator to 100 ton haul trucks.

Right now we have empty 55 gallon drums we take with us for waste, an air operated pump for waste, one pencil pump for new oil only and for oil we are typically only supplied 5 gal buckets unless it's a large quantity and we have time to order a drum ahead of time. Most guys refuse to use it but for hydraulic tanks or large axles/transmissions I use a lifting bracket made to lift a barrel then use ball valve to fill direct from a new oil barrel.

There's absolutely some more want than need but it's also better to have it before you need it rather than wait.

I priced one a while back. two product tanks and a waste oil tank all air operated. don't remember the size but it was around $25000. I think maintainer made it. seemed like a welding shop could have built it way cheaper.

Man I had no idea they were that much, especially for only two product tanks. I believe summit made the one I had looked at and it had 4 product tanks and a 10 lb grease keg and pump.

 

[his1911]

We have a box truck set up which is basically a skid just set inside a box truck. We also havehad a welding shop build us tank setups for our two service trucks, they have oil hyd and fuel 25 gallons, and 50 gallon waste oil. We then installed and plumbed the fireball pumps etc. my truck as is sits about 300# under max gvwr.

 

[Hardline]

It's funny what all we can determine is a need versus and want when it is someone else writing the check. As a small business owner myself I pour engine oil out of 1 gallon jugs I buy at Walmart. I buy hydraulic and trans fluid in 5 gallon pails. Would a lube trailer be handy? Probably, most defiantly. Is in nesscary or cost effective? No. Will I be buying

 

[his1911]

Sometimes it boils down to a matter of scale and routine as to whether a lube truck or skid is a waste of money or an essential investment, if you're doing services on skid steer loader s or mini RCA once or twice a month then a lube set up is an extravagant waste of capital. If you're doing a DirecTV oil changes consisting of ten to twenty gallons of engine oil, plus grease and hydraulic fluids....then