Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix
Originally Posted By: Hounds
Let's go back a square: Is it really possible that over pressure could be sufficient to distort/crush the "Spiral Steel Center Tube" (Wix nominclature)?
I think sayjac got it right with his comments above. I agree that the oil pump's pressure regulator probably malfunctioned and there was some very high pressure put into the oil filter. Per the FRAM training video, if the oil pump pressure regulator fails, there can be 300+ PSI output. The fact that the poster of the video showed that the filter's gasket puked oil all over the place indicates there was a huge amount of pressure in the filter. The spiral center tube, once it started to collapse probably naturally caused the element to twist as pressure collapsed it inward and downward.
Once the initial collapse of the guts occurred, then the element couldn't seal any more because it couldn't maintain the seal on the base plate. The oil would then just bypass the filter like there were no guts at all inside the can. This all probably happened withing a very short time frame - in mere seconds.
If the oil pump was still putting out massive pressure, then the engine's oiling circuit received the brunt of the over pressure - that's probably what actually damaged his engine. If this is what happened, and this guy rebuilds his engine without checking out the pump's pressure regulator, it will happen again, no matter what oil filter is installed.
Originally Posted By: Hounds
Why wouldn't the by-pass valve prevent that or the outer gasket fail first? Stated differently, I find it hard to imagine that there would be enough oil pressure to distort the center tube once the outer gasket failed. This seems really extraordinary, no?
It is extraordinary. I'd bet if someone disabled the oil pump's pressure relief valve you could replicate this failure pretty easily. The element and center tube is not designed to withstand hundreds of PSI delta across it ... it's designed to withstand more like 30 PSI. The bypass probably did open, but if the oil pump is putting out that much volume and pressure there is no way a wimpy bypass valve is going to handle the massive over load, therefore the filter collapses.
Still there would need to a huge pressure differential and not just high oil pressure to distort the filter element. Even if we assume the oil pressure went high we should also assume that the filter bypass was working, so why should we assume there was a huge pressure differential? The only time we'd see the filter element get crushed if there was overpressure and the filter bypass failed (or more likely was missing).
But you say the "filter bypass can't take the load". How do you know that? Most likely the bypass is sized so it can bypass as much oil as an oil pump's pressure relief valve can, or as much oil as the filter feed can flow. That's the goal of a bypass to allow nonrestrictive flow.
And then filter element doesn't look crushed from hydraulic pressure. It looks crushed vertically by vertical pressure like someone standing on the filter. I don't buy this guy's story.