Save your engines

[SHIPCHIEF]

I thought my ASHWAMEGH was clean after a visual inspection. But George talked me into changing the idler gear, and I found black muck in the bottom of my sump.
7 hours of running time when I tore it down, and the bearings looked like your pictures. I'm with Tom on this one.
Oh, my machine came with a suction screen.

[fabricator]

I can't imagine running ANY engine without an oil filter, a screen is just ridiculous.

[LincTex]

I can't imagine running ANY engine without an oil filter, a screen is just ridiculous.

BUT... VERY FEW small single cylinder engines have oil filters!!!!

[fabricator]

I'm really talking about the sand boxes from India.

[dieselfox]

Gentlemen

There was no sand in my engine when I rebuilt it.  It is a Volvo MD1, and has an excellent casting.  The scratches you see came from little flecks of steel, very small and flat, from somewhere in the engine.  They had collected in the sump pan where I found them.  I imagine they would have easily been taken out of the system by a conventional oil filter, but this engine only had a screen.  They passed right through.

When I do start this up, it will have an oil filter on it.  This means I will have to install an auxiliary oil pump as I have seen in other installations.  This however will allow me to install a "bypass" filter to clean as well as filter the oil.  I have decided on a Frantz Filter.  Over-kill I know, but these engines are a hobby. 

Dieselfox

[cognos]

Just a question, dieselfox - but in your last post, what is meant by the statement "clean as well as filter the oil." ? Is there some other mechanism other than mechanical filtration of the oil taking place somehow, with this type of filter?

[dieselfox]

Cognos

It comes down to how well the filter takes out particulates.   Regular "full flow" filters catch anything around 30 microns or larger.   A bypass can take down to 2 microns or less.  Of course it does this slowly, so it cannot be a "full flow" filter.  It will eventually get all the oil say several times a hour. 

Diesel soot in the oil is around 4 to 7 microns.  This is what I meant by "cleaning" the oil.  A good bypass filter will even get the soot.

Dieselfox

[mike90045]

and you can always drop a magnet into the sump, it will snag any iron particles swirling around

[fabricator]

Then again if you have clean engine we need to remember here that the original Lister CS engines ran 24/7 for years with no fancy oil filters and in less than optimum conditions and millions of diesel engines have run billions of miles using nothing but spin on filters.

[cognos]

I see. So it's just fine filtration. Certainly can't hurt.

[LincTex]

Just a question, dieselfox - but in your last post, what is meant by the statement "clean as well as filter the oil." ? Is there some other mechanism other than mechanical filtration of the oil taking place somehow, with this type of filter?

There are various centrifuges available for cleaning engine oil, and can be worth looking into.

[vdubnut62]

Just a question, dieselfox - but in your last post, what is meant by the statement "clean as well as filter the oil." ? Is there some other mechanism other than mechanical filtration of the oil taking place somehow, with this type of filter?

There are various centrifuges available for cleaning engine oil, and can be worth looking into.

I have a tractor with a centrifugal oil filter OEM. It will pull a bunch of nasty stuff out of the oil, but I wouldn't go as far as to say "cleans'
it, it's still BLACK!  I'm not aware of anything that  the do it yourself-er can do that will filter/clean  to the point of removing the black from diesel oil.
Ron

[LincTex]

I'm not aware of anything that  the do it yourself-er can do that will filter/clean to the point of removing the black from diesel oil.

Not impossible... but VERY difficult to do!
Besides, the color isn't important.
I am very curious as to what micron level various centrifuges will clean out.

Besides your Belarus tractor, Scania diesel engines also use centrifuges.

I have a semi-truck slavage yard near me....
and have never been able to locate a centrifuge on any of the wrecks they have hauled in.