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The OIL and Filters Page
There are some interesting things going on in the Automotive industry, Mechanics are seeing more and more problems directly related to dirty or coked oil. I have personally seen a number of engines that had fewer than 50,000 miles on them that have been destroyed by lack of oil changes. Some car owners think oil changes are optional. The never ending challenge to produce higher mileage and fewer emissions is forcing change, not all of it is good when it comes to longevity.
I offer the following as an example as to why you should consider installing a by pass filter and move to synthetics.
The Hydraulic lifter above shares space with a dime. This little part has made it's way into lots of engines, a common Japanese V6 will have 24 of these. As you can imagine, the little oil passages within this lifter can get plugged up and cause it to fail. In addition, that little 'O' ring you see will eventually get hard and brittle and fail. These little units often sell for $28 each at your dealer... do the math! Mechanics are busy changing out these little guys as I write. Adding a bypass filter and moving to synthetics never made more sense, you'll supply cleaner oil to your engine and lower the temp some, both will assure these (and other parts) live far longer lives. ------------------------------------------- At this point I am convinced that BYPASS FILTERS should be installed on anything you plan on driving past 100,000 miles. Or continuos duty generator sets you wish to run versus work on. I've read accounts of people mounting industrial type bypass filters on cars and driving 500,000 miles without an oil change, they claimed to have sent samples of their oil to a lab for testing and found that it was as clean as the stuff being sold as new oil. How can this be? What about acids, anti wear properties, oil molecules wearing out and all that stuff? Keep reading... Then one of my friends that works for a well known rebuilder of massive (expensive) hydraulic pumps got interested in filters, He has been using the resources of his Company's lab and their oil analysis program. His conclusion is.... There are indeed oil filters that can filter down to one or two microns in the bypass mode. There is no need to change oil when you have the correct filters in place. The replacement oil during a filter change will keep the additive properties high enough to be effective, the removal of particles in the <20 micron range will indeed help extend the life of a vehicle. He feels the proper name for a full flow filter should be "strainer", because that's all they do. If you look into this further, you'll find the government is big on by pass filters that use paper towel rolls. In fact, lots of Hummers and other military vehicles use these filters. "My conclusion"; there are bypass filters that you could install on your generator set along with the regular filter that will greatly reduce particle size in the oil; can this be a bad thing? There is no doubt (in my mind) that a good filter system could eliminate oil changes if proper filter change intervals are established. Enter 'bypass filters' into your search engine, check out Gulf Coast Filters, be sure to check pricing before you buy. I have found prices double from vendor to vendor for the same filter system! If you have an oil filter on a Chinese Horizontal, a Petter, or a Lister, consider sending me email and telling me about it, we need to share the best ways to add filtration for the lube oil. An interesting note: Years ago; there was an oil filter called the 'Frantz Filter' , it used a roll of toilet paper as the filter element. Some people swore by them, the majority of folks knew it had to be a bad idea, and poo pooed it. Today, we have the Pentagon endorsing toilet paper and paper towel filters!, oil companies use toilet paper filters in their oil field pump engines. It's time to add a bypass to the things you love. Here's an email I found on the net, I think this guy is right on target...
Subject: Franz Oil Cleaner Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 From: Rod Leggett <tac@hia.net> Back in the 60's the Franz Oil Cleaner was sold through individual distributors. Kind of like Tupperware. The filter was very controversial. A lot people thought the toilet paper would come apart and clog up the engine. The fact was, the filter was ingenious. It was designed on the premise that oil never wears out -- it just gets contaminated. It wasn't designed to replace the engine's oil filter. The unit was mounted usually in a place under the hood that was easily accessible. Usually on one of the tire wells or firewall. It had a chrome cover the size of a roll of toilet paper. You placed a roll of toilet paper inside the cover and slid the cover over a metal tube about the size of the toilet paper core. It attached to a base using a ring-type clamp. It had a rubber o-ring gasket at the base, and when you set the clamp, you got an oil-tight seal. It had two small pipe-fitting connections on the bottom. Using the connectors that came with the unit, you would attach a rubber hose to the opening marked "inlet" on the Franz and the other end to a fitting on the engine that had oil pressure. It came with a fitting that would allow you to unscrew the oil pressure gauge fitting and install the Franz fitting, which had two outlets. You could then reinstall the oil pressure fitting and a fitting that would allow you to connect the Franz Oil Cleaner. The other opening on the Franz was discharge outlet. You usually punched a hole in the oil pan and screwed in a fitting that came with the unit. You then connected a hose back to the outlet on the unit. The Franz didn't replace the oil filter that came on the car for two main reasons. First, you didn't want to void the car's warranty and second, you couldn't replace the filter, because a car's filter was designed not to restrict the oil pressure or flow to the engine parts. A cars oil filter doesn't clean oil, it just filters small microscopic metal parts from the oil. Now this is where the Franz Cleaner was ingenious. About 10% of the car's oil would flow through the Franz. It went from the bottom and up through the tightly packed toilet paper into the center tube and back down in to the engine pan. The toilet paper not only cleaned the oil, it removed water from it. You never had to change the oil, only the roll of toilet paper. One of the reasons I think it didn't catch on was that most of the cars at the time were using oils with additives. The additives would automatically under heat change the color of the oil from fresh clear-looking oil to black dirty-looking oil, even though it was as clean as the day you poured it out of the can. In conducting an experiment using oil without any additives, the oil never changed color. It remained as clear as the day it came out of the can. The Franz had a metal wire that was in the cleaner top that was placed there before you inserted the toilet paper so when it came time to change, you unfastened the clip at the bottom, removed the top, then you could use the metal wire to pull the paper out of the holder. Yes, if you weren't real careful and didn't know what you were doing it could be messy. If you did know what you were doing, it was great. Just think about it. When it came time to change the oil & filter all you did was pop the hood, replace the toilet paper in the Franz, add 1 quart of oil to the engine, and you were ready for another 3,000 or 5,000 miles. You never needed to change the car's regular oil filter because no sludge ever built up in the engine to clog it up. You didn't need to drain and change the car's engine oil because it remained clean and free from contaminants. Your cost for an oil and filter change? One quart of oil and one roll of toilet paper. Franz cleaners were not only used to clean a car's engine oil, they also were used to keep the radiator water clean and the transmission fluid clean. They also made one that held 3 rolls of toilet paper and was used for large diesel trucks or or any large gasoline- or diesel-driven equipment or machinery. I'm not real sure why the company didn't survive. It may have been its distribution process or the failure of the public to accept it, but one thing is for sure, it worked. Very truly yours, Rod Leggett Bottom Line? keep an open mind, do your own research, but I think it's time for by pass filters, Allis Chalmers had them years ago, and you can still get the Yarn style by pass screw on element at NAPA.... now we just need to find an inexpensive bolt on mount for it. Following is information sent by readers:
Hello, I read your Utterpower site info about the Frantz. I just wanted to let you know that they are still for sale. A company called We Filter It markets it now. It is still called the Frantz Oil Cleaner/Filter. I personally have never used it but have read good stuff about it. The website is www.wefilterit.com The prices for this type of filter all seem to run the same give or take 50 bucks. Other options for bypass filtration are the Gulf Coast Filter and the OilGuard http://www.gulfcoastfilters.com/ http://www.oilguard.com/ I hope that this information is helpful. Take Care, Joe ------------------------------------------- Here's an email from David Miller regarding another bypass filter, thanks for writing Dave ! Just a note to let you know there is another bypass oil filter available. Kleenoil Filtration. Was developed about the same time as the Frantz. The guy couldn't sell enough here in the states to make a living, so he took it to the UK. They bought it and have been using it ever since. European petroleum products prices, which have been much higher than here, probably was a deciding factor. About 8 or 9 years ago, Richard Baxter (recently deceased) brought this product to the US market. I had the privilege of working with him for most of those years. It's slightly higher priced than the Frantz and some of the Amsoil.units, but cartridge replacements are much cheaper than the Amsoil filters. Filtering to 1 micron and removing all moisture, I have a majority of my over the road truck customers running 100,000 miles on a single oil change. If you would like, you have my permission to put a link to my Thanks, David L Miller 306 E.1150 N. Milford IN 46542 kleenoil.net < I had a link to this site, but had trouble reaching it, you might try now manually.
Best Wishes, George B.
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