Engine Oil?

[Texasmark]

Remember to use a quality filter too.

This past winter I spent considerable time on the subject of engine oil filters by brand, part number variances, and grade just to see what made the difference between companies and levels. I guess my overall gut feeling is that a lot of so called quality filters look just like other's lead in filters. I ran comparisons on Wix, AC Delco, Fram, Honda, Purolator, Motorcraft and Fleet Guard.....I have a 55 gallon drum where I dump my filters when I dump my oil in other 55 gallon drums for the recycler to come and pick up.

One of the biggest eye openers was the micron rating which had to be around 20, regardless of the other stuff, to qualify as a full flow filter. Well when you rub your finger on the bottom of your crankcase or hyd. sump, that ultra fine crud that you get on your finger is what the filter didn't filter out and the part that settled to the bottom, not the part that was still flowing around the engine.

So why should I worry about getting the silicon sealing gasket or other marketing ploys to drive the price up when the part that really matters....micron rating.....is the same. Never had a seal fail, or a bypass fail that I knew about, or the inside rip apart from using it too long or the glue separate from the paper since it didn't have metal end caps....and that is one of the things I inspected especially on the Fram PF 8A which is one of their cheapest and fits my Ford tractors. Actually the more clogged the filter, the better it filters....as long as the differential pressure stays below the bypass activation pressure.

Another eye opener. On that cheap Fram, it used paper end caps and filter media frames glued together. I have pictures on another forum where I had one of those in my 2000 Ford for 2 years and dissected it. the paper mounting framework and glue were all still intact. On some of the metal capped filters there was no seal between the media and the metal cap so in that sense, the el cheapo Fram had better sealing. So much for the badmouthing that some that just like to flap their yap provide on the Fram brand.

On my OTR truck I had a bypass filter in addition to the full flow and only about 10% of the total flow went through it. But, it was around 5 micron and to handle the whole flow rate it would have been huge. However, over time all the oil passes through it so it gets the little guys eventually.

A lot of the variances were the external dimensions and the connector thread size.

So what do I buy now? I made a list of cross referenced filters for all my equipment so that I could minimize the head count. If I am in a store and they have one of the filters on the list when I am in need, that's what I buy. Still waiting to loose an engine on an oil related problem since I started driving back in 1955.

 

[WilliamBos]

Use T6. Have 800+ hours on our 1635 - switched to T6 at first service. Excellent product.