Inspecting oil filter

I just changed the oil on my Cayman and would like to inspect the filter. What is the best way to open up the filter. Should I just cut off both ends with a dremel or is there some other way to get inside?

Norm

I have never yet bothered cutting one apart.

I believe you can take a safety razor blade or an Xacto Knife and cut along at the top and bottom of the element where the filter element joins the end pieces then separate the filter element from the end pieces. Then cut the paper element lengthwise and unroll it.

If you use an abrasive cutting tool you risk getting the abrasive tool's swarf on the filter element which will make reading the contents of the filter difficult to impossible.

Also, when doing an oil change I like to pour the oil filter housing oil out into a clean drain pan to have the oil filter oil to examine, feel with my fingers.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

Thanks Marc! I figured you would have a solution. A little late to examine the oil coming out of the filter. Maybe next time.

Norm

sure enough there wasn't a speck of anything inside. I was amazed that the element when spread out measured approx five feet. That's a lot of area to collect foreign matter and to protect our engines. The '08 Cayman S has 15000 miles. I have changed the oil and filter every 5000 miles.

Norm

have a huge capacity to collect a lot of 'stuff' and not impede oil flow. (There is an over pressure bypass but it is in the high pressure pump.)

But this huge amount of oil filter area is really overkill, though I'm not complaining. For the vast majority of engines -- barring the few with problems or developing problems -- after a few thousand miles (after the engine has shed its initial load of debris that is normal for a new engine to shed) the engine sheds very little else. One could -- though I don't recommend it -- at oil change/filter change time run the engine sans an oil filter at this time and the engine would almost certainly be none the worse for the wear.

Now the situation is different at the engine air filter. The engine air filter is the first line of defense against engine wear. The engine ingests a huge amount of air in traveling say 5K miles (between oil/filter services) and as anyone can observe the air if filled with particulate matter (dirt and this consists of mostly silica which is an abrasive) any amount of this particulate matter or dirt that makes it past the filter really can accelerate engine wear. This is one reason why I'm so 'down' on aftermarket air filters. I feel they sacrifice air filtration effectiveness for increased intake air noise and perhaps some less restrictive air flow (though dyno tests don't seem to find any HP gain). Even if a few extra HP were found, the HP gain vs. potential for increased engine wear is *not* an equitable trade off in my opinion.

Sincerely,

MarcW.

How often do you change the air filter?

I'll change the air filter when I return home.

And I have been through some dirty areas: I have pics of encountering dust storms on I-20 in west Texas, on I-40 going through the middle of Albuquerque NM (at the I-40/I-25 interchange and a bit west of there). Other times (no pics) I drove for miles and miles across eastern CO and western KS in very high winds with dust everywhere and everyone once in a while smashing into another very large tumbleweed. This was late very late at night. Yet another time I was in KS -- I don't recall where now -- and the air was thick with dust and the smoke of over 10 easily spotted and counted agriculture fires with more off into the distance and much fainter. The ones I could see clearly and counted their smoke rose like a pillar reaching from the ground up into the air, with a pillar at almost at every point of the compass.

Sincerely,

MarcW.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2011 08:22PM by MarcW. (view changes)