Hole in the air filter - possible oil contaminati

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ekincam

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Jun 7, 2005
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Last Wednesday, I was inspecting my air filter when I noticed that a piece of tumble weed had gouged a hole in my air filter about 3mm x 4 mm. I replaced the air filter almost imediately considering that I live in a very dusty area.

Is there any reason that I should be concerned about my oil being contaminated due to this puncture that I should change the oil out? At most, it ran about 1000 mi with that hole in the filter because I don't know when it happened.

I currently have Penzoil Platinum 10w30 and a Pure One filter in place.

edited grammer in title, Joe
 
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If you can change the filter without losing a lot of oil and if the oil in your engine is less than 3k miles, I would change the oil filter only and add make up oil to full level.
 
The oil filter should filter out most of the bigger nasties. Worse case scenario, you shortened your engine life ~0.5%. The only way to know for sure is to do a UOA.
 
I forgot to mention that the tumble weed (thorn bush) was still in place so that should have plugged up most of the hole, but there was still a slight preforation to the side. I doubt any weed went through, though I really don't know. There was a bit of sand at the bottom of the intake box and a very very slight film on the side of the top portion of the intake box (after filter). But that film only went up perhaps 1 cm.

I did not notice any dusting on the hose that leads to the throttle body.

The filter was either a Napa Gold or Purolator. I don't know which brand I put in there.

Usually when I get thorn bush/tumbleweed pieces in the air intake box they stay in there and I vacuum those stuff and sand out.. I've never seen a piece preforate the intake filter.
 
You're probably OK; heck, I once bought a 100k mile car that didn't even have an air cleaner assembly any where near the engine and I got 2 good years out of it before it started smoking and 2 years after it did. Words can't describe the motoring bliss of stopping at an intersection and having a smoke cloud continue to barrel into the intersection for 20 seconds after stopping. It was a real crowd pleaser!
 
lol...reminds me of driving around after putting Seafoam through the vaccuum line.
 
If you want to play it safe, change the oil and filter and get a UOA on the old oil for peace of mind...or not if it says bad thing. You most likely don't have a serious problem.
 
one more vote for UOA on the old oil. just spend the $20 to know where you stand. my guess is you'll have high silicon, aluminum, and lead. if so, keep your next few OCIs a bit shorter to flush out the excess Si.
 
Yeah, just to play it safe, dump the old oil and replace the oil filter.

If you wish, you can do an UOA for us oil heads to see if there might be any issues with the silicon/wear levels
grin.gif
 
Back in the 70s my buddy ran an old Chevy wagon for well over 100,000 miles with no air filter at all. And it gave up because the frame broke from rust. Now this was in Cleveland where it's pretty wet and not dusty - I see you're in SoCal and may be near the desert.
 
I wouldn't even change the filter let alone the oil. Any small dust got blown right out the exhaust most likely. Back before I maintained my Dad's truck, he was running around for thousands of miles with an air filter the wasn't installed correctly; neither was the top part of the filter box. Consequently, a large gap was present that allowed unfiltered air into the motor. The inside of the intake duct definitely has a light coating of fine dust inside! The motor is still purring along with 200,000 miles though. Runs just fine with great oil pressure and power.
 
Quote:

I wouldn't even change the filter let alone the oil. Any small dust got blown right out the exhaust most likely. Back before I maintained my Dad's truck, he was running around for thousands of miles with an air filter the wasn't installed correctly; neither was the top part of the filter box. Consequently, a large gap was present that allowed unfiltered air into the motor. The inside of the intake duct definitely has a light coating of fine dust inside! The motor is still purring along with 200,000 miles though. Runs just fine with great oil pressure and power.

Click to expand...


One of my uncles drank like a fish, a bottle of hard booze a day and smoked like chimney. He lived to be 80 so there is obviously nothing wrong with being drunk all your life and smoking up astorm.
 
If my environment did not look like this:
IMG_1255.jpg

IMG_1181.jpg


I wouldn't be too worried about it. But the loose sand and prevailant winds worry me.

I'm prolly gonna change out the oil with Penzoil Platinum since it's on sale at Autozone. As for UOA...I'm not sure if I have anything to mail the oil.
 
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