Dust in air intake?

[GTO52]

Both my brother and I have Toyota 4x4 pickups with 3RZ-FE engines.
Last year I did a overlanding trip in a desert region here in South Africa.(The dust there is very fine like baby powder!)
When I did a service not long after this trip, to my horror I found a fine layer of dust in my air intake that had made it past the filter?(FRAM paper filter)
The filter itself had dust in it but wasn't that bad.
My brother and I did a trip this last weekend and drove a lot of miles on dirt roads, he changed his air filter yesterday and noticed he has the same problem?(I haven't checked mine yet will check this weekend)
I usually put some red rubber grease on the rubber seal were the filter opening goes on to the air intake and after my experince last year I put a small piece of thick tape under the filter so it be pushed on tighter(I thought maybe the filter is moving slightly on badly corrugated roads and loosing it seal slightly?)

To me the design of the intake is stupid?
It sucks air from inside the right fender, there is a fender lining but there must be a lot of dust coming of the front wheel?
My other older Toyota pickup's intake sits behind the headlight which seems much better in my opinion.

I could fit a snorkel but they are very expensive and I do not like the idea of cutting a hole in the fender.

How serious is this small amount of dust that is getting through to the engine?
I saw a post on a local forum here were a farmer had the same problem with a newer Toyota pickup and when he told the Toyota agents they said not worry this small amount of dust wasn't enough to do damage!
I want to do a UOA afer my next oil change to make sure.

 

[ctc]

Yeah I would do a UOA.

Do you have any oiled paper filters available there? Here we have the Purolator Pureone air filter. I would think that oiled paper would help catch that fine dust better.

 

[Nick R]

Nearly all filters will do this. I have a very fine layer of dust inside my air box on the "clean" side of the filter. It is just the extremely fine particles that make it past the filter building up, nothing to worry about imo. All 4 of our cars display this.

 

[BobFout]

Time to try a synthetic media filter?

 

[Texan4Life]

+1...I would try a lightly oil paper filter like purolator pureone or fram tough guard.

i would be interested to see if the oiled paper seemed to work better.

 

[GTO52]

We are very limited in what we can get here.
FRAM and GUD paper filters and cheap rip offs of FRAM filters.
We can get K&N but from what I have heard they are not as good at filtering as a paper filter?
I will try do some searching for an oiled paper filter.
An oiled paper filter IMO would definitely be better at stopping small particles from getting through.

 

[HTSS_TR]

The factory installed paper filter of my '04 Honda S2000 was lightly oiled. My area is not very dusty such that the OEM filter is still on the car after 6 years and 32k miles, I don't see much dust on the filter to replace it, it can easily lasted 60k miles.

 

[Jim Allen]

I disagree with the other poster that said "no worries" about the dust. Short term, probably nothing to worry about, but if you want to keep that Toyota for a long period, you should find a cure. Whether you should be worried into spending some serious time and money depends on how often you travel in that kind of dust. I have experienced that "talc" like dust and have never seen a paper filter that couldn't get virtually all of it, so either the Frams you have are marginal in some way or dust is getting by the seals as you surmise. That may well be your answer.

I replaced the air filtration system in my off-road rig (which was a desert runner here in the States) when I noted the same thing you did... but it had a better excuse because it had a K&N system that came with the turbo kit. It took a while to figure out how to revamp it, but I ended up using the filter canister from a 545ci Massey Ferguson farm tractor, which had a washable synthetic main element with a cyclonic cleaner at one end (which spun out much of the the dust) and an inner secondary filter. Worked really well!

Not sure if anything like this is possible for your Toyota, They do make cyclonic pre-filters, but you'll need to put that on the end of a snorkel. You may also be able to rig some kind of a pre-fitler without a snorkel, but the snorkel is the best idea because it raises the intake up outta most of the dust

 

[GTO52]

I want to keep it at least another 5 years.
From what I have heard the 3RZ-FE is one of the best engines Toyota has ever made.I have read on a few local forums here that they will do 500000 to 700000 kilometers before need any sort of overhaul.But surely those that have done such high mileages have had the same problem?

 

[Steve S]

Is that the 6 cyl engine with the round filter? if so I had one, and would RTV [silicon sealant] the clean side to the air box sealing surface. I RTV all same style my filters that way.

 

[Texan4Life]

Originally Posted By: GTO52
We are very limited in what we can get here.
FRAM and GUD paper filters and cheap rip offs of FRAM filters.
We can get K&N but from what I have heard they are not as good at filtering as a paper filter?
I will try do some searching for an oiled paper filter.
An oiled paper filter IMO would definitely be better at stopping small particles from getting through.


lookup the part number for the air filter you want to get.

Fram - http://www.framcatalog.com/Application.aspx?b=F
Purolator - http://www.purolatorautofilters.net/resources/Pages/ApplicationGuide.aspx

and then search for a online retailer that will ship to SA.

You can get purolator pureones from http://www.jcwhitney.com/ and http://www.advanceautoparts.com/

you can also try amazon.com and rockauto.com

 

[widman]

A simple solution that I've done to my Hi-Lux and my T100.

I've also put it in a Mitsubishi Triton and the Nissan people are putting them in the Frontiers. This how it ends up in the Hi-Lux

This is the Donaldson PowerCore. This kit fits real easily, and should be available in South Africa as Donaldson has their regional headquarters and regional distribution there.

99.99% of the dust is pulled out.

 

[Steve S]

Those donaldson units are top of the line they were on lots of the newer equipment I worked on.

 

[GTO52]

I checked my air intake yesterday and there is no dust in it, so the grease around the seal and the tape I put on the back of the filter to make sure the filter fits tighter seem to be working.We are going to send a sample of my brother's oil off tomorrow for a UOA.

 

[widman]

I just notice your sig. your If your 2002 is a Hi-Lux it is exactly the one I have (2.7L) that I converted. A super easy instalation.

 

[GTO52]

Got UOA back on my brother's pick up turned out okay:

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/delo-400-15w40-2004-toyota-2700i-3rz-fe.129226/