Cutting open oil filter

[Oil Doc]

I use to sell quite a few DAHL fuel filters when we carried them.. 2 reasons... Inconvenient location like on the Dodge and they were a 2 Micron filter... Sold them to a lot of Dodge and Ford owners alike..

Really helps save Injector's and pumps with that 2 Microm Filter as well..


Doc

 

[patrick_g]

Egon, My family made it through the regression and the dust bowl!

Doc, I suppose there is a probably a point of diminishing returns as you go finer and finer with the filter as a too fine filter will plug too quickly and bypass dirty oil. Do you have a feel for where that may be? I realize I am asking how high is up or how long is a roll of string as it would depend on the severity of service and vehicle dependent idiosyncrasy.

Pat

 

[DieselPower]

2 micron is no where close to "to fine" for a fuel filter. If I'm not mistaken the Caterpillar factory high effeciency fuel filters are 2 micron. One thing to remember about the fuel system is that it is relatively a low volume fuel flow unlike the high volume of a oil system.

 

[john_bud]

you remind me of a handwringer. worry,worry ,worry.


when a person is insecure about machinery they tend to compensate by becoming overscientific and belittling people who don't follow the same philosophy or do things the way they do.

"check engine" lite doesn't mean don't drive it.

in many cases it doesn"t mean very much at all, unless you are insecure about vehicles and will have to take it to a mechanic to get it fixed.

then it becomes a source of anxiety and fear.

same with looking in the filter.

get out the crystal ball and take it to Madame Cleo'.

Kick, You are very funny. I doubt you would be able to find many folks that are more hands on than I am. Insecure around equipment? Not so much.

As the old saying goes, "I think thou doth protesteth too much". I also think that you don't spend much time spinning wrenches on your own or anyone else's equipment - or else you prefer repairing catastrophic failures over more complex but 1000x cheaper preventative measures. That's ok too, especially if you are in the repair business.

Either way, it's no skin off my nose. I know what I do, why I do it and what benefit it gives. I could be dead wrong and waisting time and money, maybe. Maybe not.


jb

 

[patrick_g]

2 micron is no where close to "to fine" for a fuel filter. If I'm not mistaken the Caterpillar factory high effeciency fuel filters are 2 micron. One thing to remember about the fuel system is that it is relatively a low volume fuel flow unlike the high volume of a oil system.

OH, I wasn't protesting the 2 micron size for diesel fuel I was musing and interested in your take on the size where too small starts to happen. I have seen 0.5 (1/2) micron filters. I used to use a forward scattering light beam type particle detector. It has a pump on it that would suck up a liter per minute and the sample would continuously pass through a chamber with a light beam shining through it. Particles would scatter light which was detected. The readout was a strip chart that portrayed a spectrum of particle sizes and numbers. This would show you how many particles of what size were in a liter of sample. The machine covered from 0.1 micron and up. I was interested in the amount of contamination from 1/2 of a micron on up.

To give an idea about how things work in practice... The maint guys knew the fine secondary filters were expensive and harder to come by than the primary (rough filters) so if they detected contamination the first thing they tried was changing the rough filter which was a waste of time and money since the fine filter downstream would catch anything the rough filter missed and would do as well (except for premature clogging) without the rough filter. Their approach had been in use for years prior to me coming along and everyone was resistant to change at the hands of a newbie so I had to take a few days and run experiments and write a report to prove that it was incredibly stupid to do it their way. I was right of course but it sure ticked off a bunch of folks from the lowly filter changer to his boss's boss. Their minds were made up and didn't want anyone to confuse them with the facts.

Sound familiar?

Pat

 

[Oil Doc]

I had some data from Racor a couple years ago and 2 Micron is what they consider to be the point of filtration required to keep your pumps and injectors in good condition.

Many of the filters like on trucks are 20 and 10 Micron from the factory. With the way the Dahl filter was designed and run as your final filter, there were no problems as it was a cleanable filter for the most part.

I wish I knew where my parts breakdowns were but you should be able to find it online.

Doc