Fram Synthetic Endurance cut open

[SkipCam]

Removed the Fram Synthetic Endurance and replaced with a Microgard Select - looks like I got lucky with the Fram.

After getting a lot of good information and feedback here I switched to the Microgard Extended oil filter for my 2024 motorhome (Ford E450 - 7.3l Godzilla V8). Very happy with the quality of the Microgard. After I took the Fram off I drained it out and cut the top off the filter. I don't have a fancy oil filter cutter so the Dremel tool got it done. I was curious if the filter had the ripples everyone is talking about in the leaf at the bottom of the filter. Took it apart and cleaned up the leaf. It looks flat to me, no visible ripples or any that I could feel. I put the leaf up against the bottom of the filter element and it sat flat without any voids that I could see with my naked eye. Maybe I got lucky or maybe Fram got their act together. This filter went on the vehicle in September 2024, purchased from Walmart so I don't know how long it sat on the shelf.

 

[Glenda W.]

Thanks. Second good one I’ve seen this week! Problem is you never know what you’ll get…

 

[BHopkins]

Nothing wrong there. But even if there were ripples in the bypass plate, I suspect that the effect is way over imagined by many.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Took it apart and cleaned up the leaf. It looks flat to me, no visible ripples or any that I could feel. I put the leaf up against the bottom of the filter element and it sat flat without any voids that I could see with my naked eye. Maybe I got lucky or maybe Fram got their act together.

It's possible someone from First Brands/Fram/Champ Labs is reading this forum. Motorking use to be the feedback loop to Fram before First Brands took over. Bad press usually makes people perk up and do something to correct an on-going issue.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Nothing wrong there. But even if there were ripples in the bypass plate, I suspect that the effect is way over imagined by many.

With evidence of many leaf springs with large ruffles and a resulting big leak gaps have been shown many times here, it's not really "imagined". A big leak gap is going to bypass oil around the media, just like a tear in the media would do. If people accept leak gaps between the leaf spring and end cap, then they should also accept torn media.

 

[KCJeep]

You lucked out for sure… I can tell it was about to ripple any minute.

 

[BHopkins]

With evidence of many leaf springs with large ruffles and a resulting big leak gaps have been shown many times here, it's not really "imagined". A big leak gap is going to bypass oil around the media, just like a tear in the media would do. If people accept leak gaps between the leaf spring and end cap, then they should also accept torn media.

I would love to see anything that shows flow rate from ripples in the bypass valve plate are equivalent to torn filter media. Of course not all filter tears are the same, but it seems the later would be much more restrictive.

 

[ZeeOSix]

I would love to see anything that shows flow rate from ripples in the bypass valve plate are equivalent to torn filter media. Of course not all filter tears are the same, but it seems the later would be much more restrictive.

Of course media tears are all over the place, just like the leak gap on the leaf spring are. If you knew every filter of brand X could have some sized media tear in it, would you still be using them? Based on measurement taken by @Glenda W. on a pretty bad example Endurance, I came up with a 15% leak. There's a 59 page thread about that filter. It really doesn't take a very big leak gap to achieve that much volume bypass. Like mentioned often, it's hard to judge how fluid flow behaves without actually doing the calculations - just looking at something and trying to guess how the fluid flow is going to behave is often way off base. A full flow filter ideally shouldn't constantly be bypassing any dirty oil past the media.

 

[Pablo]

What was the actual date of the filter?

 

[Glenda W.]

Here are some bad examples. The seal was obviously compromised on these filters.

 

[SkipCam]

What was the actual date of the filter?

Not sure how to read the code but here it is.

 

[Fair enough]

Does the leaf spring fit tight or loose in the hole? There is a radius on the spring where it contacts the end cap, significant one. If tight in end cap, the flat area of the spring isn’t bottoming out. It should seal pretty well that way. Champ Labs made early in 2023.

 

[BHopkins]

Of course media tears are all over the place, just like the leak gap on the leaf spring are. If you knew every filter of brand X could have some sized media tear in it, would you still be using them? Based on measurement taken by @Glenda W. on a pretty bad example Endurance, I came up with a 15% leak. There's a 59 page thread about that filter. It really doesn't take a very big leak gap to achieve that much volume bypass. Like mentioned often, it's hard to judge how fluid flow behaves without actually doing the calculations - just looking at something and trying to guess how the fluid flow is going to behave is often way off base. A full flow filter ideally shouldn't constantly be bypassing any dirty oil past the media.

If your calculations are close, 15% would be significant, it seems. I may have missed that thread. My eyes glaze over and my interest wanes on super long threads.

 

[SkipCam]

Does the leaf spring fit tight or loose in the hole? There is a radius on the spring where it contacts the end cap, significant one. If tight in end cap, the flat area of the spring isn’t bottoming out. It should seal pretty well that way. Champ Labs made early in 2023.

I took it all apart, the only thing I did notice was that you can see the mark where the leaf spring sat against the filter body (6th photo on my original post) and it looks like it fit tight against the filter body.

 

[Ronn]

If your calculations are close, 15% would be significant, it seems. I may have missed that thread. My eyes glaze over and my interest wanes on super long threads.

I’ve been the only one here to challenge the calculations of 15% leakage given the pictures of light filtering gap. You can see it in the picture below. I think the leakage is actually much less through that gap.
Having said said that, keep in mind that whatever oil that is leaked, gets promptly sent back to the filter and the odds of any debris that “MAY” have been in that small amount of oil returning back into the gap are incredibly small.

 

[Ronn]

After getting a lot of good information and feedback here I switched to the Microgard Extended oil filter for my 2024 motorhome (Ford E450 - 7.3l Godzilla V8). Very happy with the quality of the Microgard. After I took the Fram off I drained it out and cut the top off the filter. I don't have a fancy oil filter cutter so the Dremel tool got it done. I was curious if the filter had the ripples everyone is talking about in the leaf at the bottom of the filter. Took it apart and cleaned up the leaf. It looks flat to me, no visible ripples or any that I could feel. I put the leaf up against the bottom of the filter element and it sat flat without any voids that I could see with my naked eye. Maybe I got lucky or maybe Fram got their act together. This filter went on the vehicle in September 2024, purchased from Walmart so I don't know how long it sat on the shelf.

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Is it too late to put a flashlight in the canister to see if there a light gap as in this picture below? If you can please take a pic.
Thanks

 

[ZeeOSix]

Not sure how to read the code but here it is.

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Looks like the 75th day of 2023. That's what the "3075" part means in the date code (3=2023 and 075 means the 75th day of the year). It's a Fram format date code.

 

[ZeeOSix]

I’ve been the only one here to challenge the calculations of 15% leakage given the pictures of light filtering gap. You can see it in the picture below. I think the leakage is actually much less through that gap.
Having said said that, keep in mind that whatever oil that is leaked, gets promptly sent back to the filter and the odds of any debris that “MAY” have been in that small amount of oil returning back into the gap are incredibly small.

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You wouldn't even understand the calculations. Like said, you can't just look at something like this and come up with an accurate guess. The calculations need to be done with fluids to really see what's going on. Of course, trying to justify the leakage because bypassing debris might get caught the next time around is driven by some kind of fascination with leaky oil filters it seems, lol. Hey, it's your engine so go for it.