FL820s with distorted media

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AuthorEditor

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Just cut open this Motorcraft FL820s off my '95 Grand Marquis with 124,961 on the odo. OCI was 6,203 using Motorcraft 5W-20. The distorted pleats were only near the junction in the ends of the media. I wonder if the media was just stretched a bit too much in that area to begin with? The media still appeared to be strong and no holes were visible. The ADBV worked great, keeping the filter full of oil even after sitting on the thread end for about two weeks since I took it off the car.
IMG_3403.JPG
 
I got one sitting here with 5K OCI(same oil) off an 4.6L Explorer cut open, pleats look great. How long (time) was the OCI? That said, it doesn't look like the filter failed.

fyi, mine is the newer shorter version.
 
It sure looks like the shorter new one. I just picked up 2 of these last week and when I got them home the dome end on both were dented.
 
I'm not sure if it was the shorter one. I bought it last October, if that makes a difference. OCI was 6203, which is a bit longer than I wanted to go, but I didn't feel like changing the oil in a snowstorm, which we had around the 5K mark. No signs of filter failure. The media seems really rugged. I tried pulling it apart a bit after I took the photos and it didn't want to open up even at the seam. The funny thing is that most of the way around the filter everything looks good. It's only distorted near where the two ends of the media are joined.

One additional thought is that this filter took me through most of the winter, with quite a few starts well below zero, some down to 20 below. It definitely saw some thick oil at times.
 
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Yeah I really wouldn't worry much about it. The filter is and was still able to perform it's job
 
Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
The distorted pleats were only near the junction in the ends of the media. I wonder if the media was just stretched a bit too much in that area to begin with?

yes thats probably why,you will see that often when the pleats are spaced to far,nothing wrong the filter held up fine.

unless you have a coolant in the oil issue? lol
 
Check for a coolant leak or it might just be condensation from short runs without enough heat to eaaporate it all. Filter medias tend to swell when they absorb moisture.
 
Originally Posted By: Pete C.
Check for a coolant leak or it might just be condensation from short runs without enough heat to eaaporate it all. Filter medias tend to swell when they absorb moisture.


If it is from moisture, I'd say its from condensation build-up in the oil due to short tips and not heating the oil up enough to burn it off.

Otherwise, might want to consider running a Brita filter.
lol.gif
 
Now that it's been mentioned, the media is sort of soggy looking, but not from oil. The media seems a different color/hue and texture than the 5k OCI dissected one I have. Have you noticed any coolant loss from the coolant res.?

If not, I like what Pete said about condensation/short trips, and it is from a winter OCI.

In any case, the filter did it's job and held together.
 
I love how I post a cut up of a perfectly find ecore and I get over 20 or 30 posts condemning the filter. Even though the construction was perfect and the filter did its job without any problems. A purolator gets posted and some say the spacing is fine and the filter held well. If this was a ecore you guys would have crucified me by now.
 
It does look like that H2O problem shown in the Baldwin link, but it was only on one side of the filter, near the seam. Probably 75% of the filter pleats looked totally normal. No I didn't notice any coolant loss. I did however do a coolant flush and change at the same OCI, so I will keep an eye on the level. No visible sludging or grey goo in the oil, dipstick, or filler area. Oil seemed perfectly normal upon removal. Typical runs average 30-miles each way, twice a day, five days a week, so it is up to temperature for a good amount of time.

I will say this, after seeing that thread about the Ecore blowing out its media, I was a bit worried when I first saw the distortion. But, looking at the rugged steel center core, and pulling on the media to see how strong it was, it just would be very hard to see a catastrophic failure like the Ecore.

My plan is to run maybe a 3000 OCI and change it out and see how the next one looks.
 
I'm of the opinion that too much is being made of distorted filter pleats. If there aren't any holes or tears in the media, I'm sure it's doing its job like it's supposed to.

Any oil going through an area of the filter that has widely-spacd pleats still needs to filter through one layer of media, just like any other part of the filter. If anything, those wide pleats will just have more junk collected in them compared to the other ones. What difference does it make?

No holes = no problem.
 
If you were running a Fram Xtended Guard filter, you would not have any pleat distortion or blowouts because of the stainless steel mesh backing the filter media.

That's one good reason to use a Fram Xtended Guard filter.
 
My two guesses as to what happened are in this order:

1. The filter media was stretched a bit to glue together the ends, leading to bigger gaps between the pleats in that area to begin with. This theory is supported by the rest of the media looking normal.

2. That area of distortion was the portion of the filter facing the ground, with the filter mounted horizontally. Any moisture in the system accumulates in the bottom of the filter due to gravity, causing that part of the media to swell up and resist the oil pressure. However, there wasn't so much moisture that it affected the rest of the media and the water eventually boiled off when the engine got hot. That's an argument for a strong steel center tube and rugged media that will prevent any blowouts of media.
 
Originally Posted By: 757guy
If you were running a Fram Xtended Guard filter, you would not have any pleat distortion or blowouts because of the stainless steel mesh backing the filter media.

That's one good reason to use a Fram Xtended Guard filter.



FRAM is far from the first, and not the only company to offer this.

Donaldson is the pioneer, with Fleetguard, AMSOIL and Royal Purple, as well as the TRD filters all offering this same feature.
 
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