Flo Oil Filters

[Bonafide Bob]

Not really a matter of "disrespect" - we all give Pete an ungodly hard time every once in a while.

It's that it's going to hard for ANYONE to provide any meaningful opinion to "I have an aftermarket non-standard oil filter on my Harley.   Do you think I would like it on my Stelvio?"

Everyone's wondering why you just wouldn't use the standard oil filter on both bikes, I suppose.   But you've probably had enough by now, so I'll hush.

Lannis

Not kidding, I never thought a question about oil filters would start such a chit storm. I will be more careful in the future about any questions I might have. <LOL> BOb

[Idontwantapickle]

Everyone's wondering why you just wouldn't use the standard oil filter on both bikes, I suppose. 

Bob, it's just that most Guzzi owners are as tight with money as a tick on a hound's butt. Matter of fact the nickel was invented at a Guzzi rally when two Guzzi riders spotted a dime at the same time.........
 ~;
Hunter

[Chuck in Indiana]

Bob, it's just that most Guzzi owners are as tight with money as a tick on a hound's butt. Matter of fact the nickel was invented at a Guzzi rally when two Guzzi riders spotted a dime at the same time.........
 ~;
Hunter

AHEM! Let's get the facts straight. It's when two Guzzisti saw a penny on the ground and invented copper wire.

[Vasco DG]

Bob, it's not a matter of needing or wanting respect. Both Chuck and I are old enough and confident enough, (Not to mention Grouchy enough!) not to need or want much in the way of respect. :D

The thing is that things like re-useable oil strainers are so 'Mid twentieth century' it's not funny.

Give me a few hours anf if you like I'll explain why I think these things are a hideous and inefficient joke.

Pete

[kirby1923]

Well, 35 microns is certainly nothing special, and the big question.. how DO you clean it? Dirty solvent tank?

Ultra sound cleaner works for me, couple of hours..squeaky clean. 190K on my rockster and counting.

:-)

[Bonafide Bob]

Give me a few hours anf if you like I'll explain why I think these things are a hideous and inefficient joke.

Pete
[/quote]

 I would like to hear you thoughts on them, maybe our paths will cross one day and we can talk about them.
Thanks Bob

[kirkemon]

I use a Purolator Pure One - not sure if they fit your MG.

"This is how an oil filter should be made. The anti-drainback valve is double the thickness of any other here, and obviously seals very well. The media is the best available, and there's a lot of it. The bypass valve is made from a laser-cut piece of stainless steel, and just can't bind or jam."
http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/FilterStudy.html

[Idontwantapickle]

 :pop

[cloudbase]

Shoot, I can install a couple of splitfire plugs along with the intake turbo swirl vortex generators and watch the fuel rise in the tank. :D

What, no magnets?  Luddite!

[John A]

Ultra sound cleaner works for me, couple of hours..squeaky clean. 190K on my rockster and counting.

:-)

You'll want to use an electro sonic cleaner on that filter, an ultrasonic will break the mesh apart,ruining the filter. If the manufacturer specifies an ultrasonic ,they are wrong. I wouldn't fool with it myself

[Chuck in Indiana]

Ultra sound cleaner works for me, couple of hours..squeaky clean. 190K on my rockster and counting.

:-)
[/quote
At my age, time is my most valuable commodity.  ;D Two hours to clean a freaking oil filter and hope I did a good job?? Nope. Not me.. ;D :BEER:

[kirby1923]

Ultra sound cleaner works for me, couple of hours..squeaky clean. 190K on my rockster and counting.

:-)
[/quote
At my age, time is my most valuable commodity.  ;D Two hours to clean a freaking oil filter and hope I did a good job?? Nope. Not me.. ;D :BEER:

Well I don't just sit and look at it while its do'in it!
There are battles to be fought and damsels in distress that need rescue!!!..so much stuff and soo little time!

:-)

[kirby1923]

You'll want to use a sonic cleaner on that filter, an ultrasonic will break the mesh apart,ruining the filter. If the manufacturer specifies an ultrasonic ,they are wrong. I wouldn't fool with it myself

How interesting!
Lets see I use the ultra on many other things as well that are much more delicate than SS mesh!

After 11 years the mesh seems to be holding up well.

go figure?

:-)

[John A]

 Well I stand corrected and after all it's only an oil filter so I guess I don't care how many years you've been doing it wrong. I usta too ;D

[Bonafide Bob]

Well I stand corrected and after all it's only an oil filter so I guess I don't care how many years you've been doing it wrong. ;D

What brand filter and Ultra Sonic cleaner are you using ?

Bob

[Vasco DG]

Lets see if this works? Flickr has made changes to its website with means i am having to fart about with the desktop rather than using my ipad.



OK, that seems to work.

[Bonafide Bob]

Lets see if this works? Flickr has made changes to its website with means i am having to fart about with the desktop rather than using my ipad.



OK, that seems to work.

'
What are we looking at?
Bob

[John A]

What brand filter and Ultra Sonic cleaner are you using ?

Bob

None, my experience with cleanable wire mesh oil filters is all on aviation gas turbines and a fuel funny car.
I'll let Pete answer the bearing question but it looks like those shells have good embed ability

[Bonafide Bob]

None, my experience with cleanable wire mesh oil filters is all on aviation gas turbines and a fuel funny car.

Sorry John, I meant to post that question to Kirby.

[John A]

Makes sense now, thanks

[kevdog3019]

Bob,
     It's easy to dismiss something like this. I don't think many here have experience with such a device but sure have a lot of negative hostility toward it. There is at least one that chimed in with positives (from use with it) and the others... well... Touchy subject I guess. Glad you're thick-skinned. I have theories on the subject but only that. I think it's the same as most. What do I know??  Hang in there. Seems like a tough year on this board.

[Vasco DG]

OK, so why don't I think these sorts of filters are a good or happy thing? Incidentally i think that there is a good possibility they are actually going to be WORSE in your Harley with its roller bottom end than they will in a Guzzi with its plain bearing motor.

Firstly this is one area where size is important. No not the size of the filter itself but the size of the particles it is designed to remove.

First up unless something goes wrong there should be very little particulate matter in the oil. Especially in a motive package like a Guzzi where neither the clutch nor the gearbox are incorporated in the engine or share the engine's lubricant there shouldn't be much of a chance of *Lumps* being present in the oil. in times past it was common for there to be carbon and varnish build-up on bits that got hot like the undersides of piston crowns and it was possible for his sort f horrid nonsense to get flaked off and end up circulating in the oil but actual metal bits? where pray tell would they be coming from? Modern oils are chock full of really good detergents though so that becomes a bit of a non issue. Crap gets washed off and kept in suspension in the oil before it can form into large, filterable, particles. it then just gets drained out when the sump plug is pulled.

As an example of how nice and squeaky clean even hot bits can be here's a pic of an 8V piston which runs plenty hot but loo how clean the under-crown and skirts are!



What WILL really spoil the engine's day is if something untoward gets into the oil. Either an external contaminant that gets in by mistake, (Careless checking of the oil, dirty funnel when filling etc.) or worse yet if something decides to go 'Udders Skywards' inside the engine. A very good case in point from the same engine. Buggered tappets!



Now when this starts to happen you will begin to get shit pumped through the motor. First port of call will be the oil pump after the oil has been 'Strained' by the mesh strainers on the pick-ups. Thing is the mesh strainers will take out things like false teeth and unicorn horns but nothing small enough to matter. The crap will still end up heading to the pump and alas, no matter how good your oil filter, nothing will save the pump other than dumb luck because the *Real* filter is downstream of the pump.

So, keeping your fingers crossed that whatever munt is being pumped gets through the pump without inflicting too much damage it will go on to the oil filter proper. For the last quarter century or so Guzzi have used a quite large filter with a long filter medium. This allows plenty of through flow, even when the oil is thick and viscous when cold therefore minimising the risk of the filter going into bypass when cold. If this occurs the medium un-seats allowing un-filtered oil to pass. While less than ideal of course even contaminated oil is better than no oil at all. If it DOES happen though and particulate matter does get past, or, alternatively if the filtering medium is coarse enough to let larger particles through, you end up heading down a path that won't have a happy ending.

A rough 'Rule of thumb' for clearances on plain bearings and their journals is 1 thou for every inch of journal diameter. it is this clearance that allows oil to pass through the bearing. The oil has three purposes, the clean, to lubricate and to cool. Clean is simple enough, the oil flowing through will try and wash nasties away. Lubrication is a bit more complex and has nothing to do with the oil being 'Slippery' per-se. As the bearing spins in its journal forces acting on it will try and press the surface of the journal and the bearing together. At the same time, within the oil film, a rolling wave-front forms at the point where the greatest pressure is being applied to the film. this is called the 'Hydro Dynamic Wedge' and it is what keeps the two surfaces separate. As the oil film is crushed though the clearance between the two surfaces, Journal and bearing, can be greatly reduced. From a thou say to, quite literally microns. If the two surfaces touch, a condition known as 'Boundary Lubrication', damage will be immediate and serious, no ifs or buts. Even if they don't touch though the clearance may be so diminished that if tere are bits of crap in the oil bigger than the gap between the two surfaces? Well they have to go somewhere! So where?

The answer to that is simple. They embed themselves ins the soft metal of the bearing! This, while it protects the journal initially, (And is the reason why bearings are generally made of soft metals, its not because they need to be soft to work. Its because the bearings are sacrificial. You can machine and run cast iron on cast iron if you wish and the clearances are right but when something goes wrong its all junk!) once it gets fully embedded with microscopically broken 'Sharp Stuff' it turns itself into a fast spinning rotary grinder! Bye-Bye journal! Once the clearance gets too large the oil cannot form a wedge, boundary lubrication occurs and its all over, red-rover. The next thing you know is you're hearing the 'Dogga-Dogga Noise' and that gets more expensive each time you hear a 'Dogga'!

So lets have a look at some failed bearings. These ones are from the same 8V the piston came out of.

On this shell you can clearly see larger bits of embedded DLC coating that have somehow got through the filter. What is less immediately obvious is the speckle mottling over large areas of the lower shell. This is also embedded micro-particles, most likely ones that would of found their way quite happily through a 35 micron filter even if it wasn't bypassing. The large gouge in the upper shell is just that. a big chunk of something cause that! Unicorn horn I'd say!



Now on this shell you can see the results of boundary lubrication where the oil film has eventually cried uncle! The darker, polished looking areas at the top and bottom are where the bearing has rubbed on the crankpin. If you look carefully at the bottom of the bearing you can also see where the top layer of the trimetal compound is beginning to break away revealing the cupric base below. This one wasn't very far off making the 'Dogga-Dogga' noise and that discolouration is what caused the 'Dead Engine Smell' when i pulled the barrel off!



Finally, if you look at this one you can see the microscopic 'Hazing' pattern caused by the wash-through of the aggressive particulate matter. Some of it has embedded but a large part of it has simply scored the bearing surface. Unfortunately, for a bearing to work correctly both bearing and journal have to be perfectly round and have the right clearance. once any sort of particulate damage begins to occur the bearing is compromised and failure is inevitable.



Its for this reason I am so disparaging of stuff like 'Washable' oil filters. Even if you COULD guarantee that it was perfectly clean every time it was washed it won't filter down as small as a conventional disposable filter. Do we know what its bypass pressure is? The huge advantage of using a disposable filter is you just take it, along with all the crap its collected, and chuck it to the shithouse! Then you install a new, uncontaminated, one and go heavens to betsy for another 10,000Km! Simple, easy and safe!

Oh, and since I'm farting about with pics here's one of one of the 8V rods I mentioned in another thread. They are a beautifully engineered piece. Strong as!



Pete

[kirby1923]

Sorry John, I meant to post that question to Kirby.

HI,
I use a 2 quart ultrasound that I bought some years ago from Grainger, they have many.I have used many different cleaning fluids from dish soap to diesel oil but for the filter I have had good luck with mineral spirits.
I used a scott filter and have had it since the bike was new. Lots of dirt roads to explore here in the west so change oil frequently when doing dirt.
I like being able to pull it off and pull the guts and have a look at what is in there. 30 microns is good enough for me and I like the great flow in any conditions. I studied it extensively before   making the choice and I am NOT trying to talk anybody into using a SS filter, to each his own. Closing in on 200K miles and if it breaks I can figure the filter finally got me.

cheers
:-)

[Vasco DG]

Lots of pre-filter bikes like Eldos and 850T 's without filters will go 200,000. It's just when you take them to pieces the bearings are usually scrap. My guess is that the result would be the same with one of these horrors. YOMV a.

Pete

[Bonafide Bob]

Bob,
     It's easy to dismiss something like this. I don't think many here have experience with such a device but sure have a lot of negative hostility toward it. There is at least one that chimed in with positives (from use with it) and the others... well... Touchy subject I guess. Glad you're thick-skinned. I have theories on the subject but only that. I think it's the same as most. What do I know??  Hang in there. Seems like a tough year on this board.

 Thanks for the reply. I have found over the years that if you are going hang around on these board you have to be think skinned.
  Bob

[Bonafide Bob]

Pete, thank you very much for taking the time to give such a detailed explanation, it was very informative.
 Bob

[Vasco DG]

Good!

[Bonafide Bob]

HI,
I use a 2 quart ultrasound that I bought some years ago from Grainger, they have many.I have used many different cleaning fluids from dish soap to diesel oil but for the filter I have had good luck with mineral spirits.
I used a scott filter and have had it since the bike was new. Lots of dirt roads to explore here in the west so change oil frequently when doing dirt.
I like being able to pull it off and pull the guts and have a look at what is in there. 30 microns is good enough for me and I like the great flow in any conditions. I studied it extensively before   making the choice and I am NOT trying to talk anybody into using a SS filter, to each his own. Closing in on 200K miles and if it breaks I can figure the filter finally got me.

cheers

Thanks for the reply.
Bob
:-)

[Bonafide Bob]

Good!

 In your opinion, does Moto Guzzi recommend 10/60 oil to help avoid oil filter bypass during cold starts?

 Bob

[Vasco DG]

Buggered if I know? Logic would suggest that a lower base viscosity oil would reduce the chance of bypass. Reality means there is probably a tick list of basic crap and then a few specifics WRT certain applications. I dunno! I'm just a dumbf*ck mechanic!

Pete