<VV> RE: Break-in Oil & Filter

[Tony Underwood]

At 02:22 hours 08/12/2004 -0700, Joe Macmurchie wrote:
>Hmmm, have you ever seen an oil filter fail while watching it? <G> I always
>wondered what happens.

I can tell you what happens...  if it's a spin-on filter screwed onto the
front of a tweaked 426 engine in a '66 Plymouth Satellite capable of
running almost 100 lbs of oil pressure when the engine was still relatively
cold and you're under the hood trying to get the choke adjusted on the
front carb so the damned thing would actually start and remain running on
cool mornings, blipping the throttle to clear the engine and attempt to rev
it a bit, maybe settle it down so it would idle without having to stand
there choking it with my hand... rumpety Crower Monarch camshaft wasn't
helping either...  and the no-name oil filter I'd bought from Advance Store
on sale suddenly split around the seam where the base attached to the can
and spurted oil everydamnedwhere in a honey colored spray, in my face and
hair and jacket and all over the engine, dumping something like 4 quarts of
20-50 racing oil onto the ground before I had the sense to yank the coil
wire and kill the engine which THEN didn't wanna stop running, zapping
myself bigtime in the process with the big mean yellow Accel ignition coil
since I'd grabbed the distributor end of the wire when I'd yanked, and the
coil simply arc'ed to me... sucker would throw a spark over 4 inches when
unloaded, paperwork said not to do it unloaded because the coil could arc
internally and damage itself if run without a load etc.    I was the
load...   I said many bad words after I got my mouth working again.    

I didn't much care for the walk to the auto parts store where I bought a
Fram oil filter and more oil, then walked back to the car to fill it up and
install the new filter and then went through the same process with the
errant choke which refused to cooperate... although I did NOT buzz up the
engine until it warmed a bit and I didn't buy any more noname oil filters.
  The parking lot of Krispy Kreme donuts was stained with a circle about 4
feet wide for several years after that incident... I'd been inside sucking
coffee and gulping donuts for some time, and the car had cooled off, early
November weather and the morning was pretty chilly.    They never found out
that it was me who'd greased up the parking lot since I'd parked beside the
donut shop where the parking lot went around the front of the building and
had fixed the car and gone before anyone saw the big puddle.     Again, no
more noname oil filters...  


This also goes for Corvairs, no cheap noname filters for them either.
Not worried about 100 lbs of oil pressure blowing the filter off, just
concerned about scoring crank journals with the junk that always seems to
find its way into the oil pan of any street driven engine.     


tony..