oil seporater for crankcase breather (found and fixed)

[David Glubrecht]

Well I found it.  And for the archives found and fixed a problem.
The problem was severe smoking on a 90 90q 20v.
In looking for the seporater I removed and in the process damaged the piece 
that presses into the block.  Since I had a new one I made and installed a 
baffle on the inside hoping to control oil passage.
I found the seporater which is a wound up wire in the breather hose that 
runs across the back of the block.  This bunch of wire was filled up with 
carbon so it didn't have much surface area for oil to condense on.  I also 
found the small maniflod vacume hose had collapsed so I fixed that as well. 
Since all three changes were made at the same time I am not positive which 
was the biggest problem, but now the car does not burn oil or put out a 
James Bond smoke screen.

   Dave G



> Some VWs had a plastic box with squiggly bits for oil vapor to 
> collect/condense on, but no Audi model that I know of has one built-in, 
> save racers/rally cars; Scott Justasson mentioned a car he crewed(crews?) 
> for came with an 'official' Audi Sport air/oil separator.
>
> Most cars have a copper squiggle in the upper part of the tube that is 
> referred to as a flame arrestor in the parts catalog and Bentley, although 
> I don't think anyone has ever figured out how exactly one would get flame 
> near there..it'd take a serious backfire...
>
> If anyone knows of a true separator, I'm all ears- most of the stuff 
> available consists of catch cans, which aren't the same thing- and worse, 
> vent to the atmosphere, which is very bad for the environment (not to 
> mention, makes you fail emissions AND makes a mess of the engine 
> compartment).  A separator would be a blessing on the turbo cars as they 
> tend to blow enough oil out the breather system to gum up the ISV, coat 
> the intercooler, cause various rubber intake hoses to fail prematurely, 
> etc.
>
> Best I've been able to find was one designed for airplanes, complete with 
> return line for returning oil to the crank...but they were extremely 
> unresponsive regarding automotive applications, and the orientation was 
> completely wrong (inlet up top, exit down below; opposite of what's needed 
> for the Audi breather system layout.
>
> Brett
>
> -- 
> "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/
>
>