[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Oil filter fiasco


FYI List Members:

Dan Wood responded to my original post:"Oil filter fiasco"

Peter Schulz
1990 Coupe Q
_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Oil filter fiasco
From:    dwood@efn.org at PMDF
Date:    5/5/95  10:59 PM

Peter,

Boy, do I feel for you.  I've worked on H*n*a automobiles for 20 years
(earned my way through college in part as a service technician) and I had
a problem similar to your's with the old gasket packing up against the
new one.

Well, be warned.

In my case, I came across the *one* filter from the factory that was
fitted with *2* gaskets.  The filter was shrink-wrapped, and I never
noticed it till I keyed-on and Old Faithful and Mt. Vesuvius erupted,
combined with the best of Pennsylvania's oil fields.

I looked, and sure enough, the old gasket *did* come off with the old
filter, the new one just came with two.  <sigh>  Those experiences make
for l-o-n-g days, *especially* on customer's cars.  No harm done in this
case, and full disclosure to the customer, who couldn't have cared less
("You mean oil just sprayed all over?  I don't see any oil.  As a matter
of fact, I don't *ever* remember my engine being this clean before...."
Sure, after an hour-and-a-half of elbow grease and a *free* oil change).
The garage floor looked like a parking lot for the Exxon Valdez.  On the
plus side, I didn't need to use the creeper anymore; the friction
coefficient just didn't make it necessary.  :)  The happy news is only
about a quart sprayed out under cranking, so the engine wasn't
oil-starved (yes, I'd pre-filled the filter.  But, oh, what coverage a
quart'll give.  Lost more *after* shutdown.

Moral:  Check the old filter to make sure the gasket came off with it.
Check new filters to be sure there's only one gasket.  And torque the
filter in place using a real torque wrench on a cap-drive (I had, but
those double gaskets just compressed anyway).

Feel free to cross-post any ofthis to the quattro list; I don't have time at
the moment, but it might help our fellow listmembers to know that *sometimes*
filters come from the factory with *two* gaskets.

Best wishes for happy motoring,

    Dan

Daniel B. Wood, Ph.D.
EdCon3 Educational Consulting
Eugene, OR