Today marks the second time I've seen one of our welding machines at work with the wrong oil filter installed. These are gas-powered Miller/Lincoln units, but all our gas models use a Kohler V-Twin of some variant, a Kohler Command Pro CH18/20/22. They take a PH3614 (in Fram terms) filter with a 3/4 thread.
The fact that the product literature only references a Kohler oil filter number, seems to befuddle our purchasing guy. Thus he tells the operators just to give him the part number that's currently on the welder-- you can see how that can exacerbate the wrong-oil-filter dilemma. This issue arises because we also have a diesel fleet of welding machines, which use Kubota D722 engines (inline 3 cyl.) The Kubutas run a typical Japanese-spec filter (all my Honda and Nissan vehicles ran the same filter) a PH7317 or PH3593A both fit.
You can install a PH7317 or PH3593A type filter, and only that type on the diesel models, as they have a 20x1.5 thread (someone correct me if I'm wrong). However. on the gas models, it accepts both a PH3614 (correct filter) and the larger thread metric PH7317/PH3593A. They have been using the larger filter on the gas engines. When I noticed the first I immediately replaced the filter for the correct one. Indeed the metric thread filter DOES fit the 3/4 adapter on the gas machines; it's loose as all get-out (the operators are far from mechanics) but does tighten up.
These two machines in question only have 700 hours on them and have likely been run using the wrong filter since the first oil change. The guys have the attitude that if it fits and works, all is well. I showed our purchasing guy the difference in the play while installing each filter, and hope I squashed this problem. Any adverse affects in using a filter whose threads don't really fit? In my mind, the threads won't seal, and will cause oil to bypass the input to the output without being filtered. Curious if anyone has come across this before or your thoughts on the topic...
The fact that the product literature only references a Kohler oil filter number, seems to befuddle our purchasing guy. Thus he tells the operators just to give him the part number that's currently on the welder-- you can see how that can exacerbate the wrong-oil-filter dilemma. This issue arises because we also have a diesel fleet of welding machines, which use Kubota D722 engines (inline 3 cyl.) The Kubutas run a typical Japanese-spec filter (all my Honda and Nissan vehicles ran the same filter) a PH7317 or PH3593A both fit.
You can install a PH7317 or PH3593A type filter, and only that type on the diesel models, as they have a 20x1.5 thread (someone correct me if I'm wrong). However. on the gas models, it accepts both a PH3614 (correct filter) and the larger thread metric PH7317/PH3593A. They have been using the larger filter on the gas engines. When I noticed the first I immediately replaced the filter for the correct one. Indeed the metric thread filter DOES fit the 3/4 adapter on the gas machines; it's loose as all get-out (the operators are far from mechanics) but does tighten up.
These two machines in question only have 700 hours on them and have likely been run using the wrong filter since the first oil change. The guys have the attitude that if it fits and works, all is well. I showed our purchasing guy the difference in the play while installing each filter, and hope I squashed this problem. Any adverse affects in using a filter whose threads don't really fit? In my mind, the threads won't seal, and will cause oil to bypass the input to the output without being filtered. Curious if anyone has come across this before or your thoughts on the topic...