I know this has been discussed in the past, but wanted to bring the conversation back. I currently use the blue DBL7405 oil filter and change my oil at about 5,000. The truck has about 95,000 on it. When I change the oil, the oil gets black pretty quick. So I have been thinking of maybe oil bypass filter could help. But my mechanic friend who works at ford say all diesels oil turn black because of the diesel fuel interaction with the oil. But I have read that guys who use oil bypass filters can keep the oil cleaner. So what are guys using now a days for oil bypass filtration. I saw a right up of a DIY setup using Baldwin filters. Is there any other good DIY setups out there that people would recomend. The amsoil one seems expensive and the other are about the same. If I do install a system, I want the filters to be reasonable and easily purchased locally. Also if you know of a complete kit that uses off the shelf filters I would be interested.

Thanks in advance for people's responses.

Chris in San Diego
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Diesel oils are designed to hold onto soot particles and then release in the filter. They will not release 100% of the soot and tend to stay black. I have no idea what interaction with diesel the mechanic is talking about.

I have never tried bypass filtration and a majority of 7.3s (>300,000 mi) with high mileage I have seen do not have a bypass setup. The bypass filtration will not replenish anti foam additives or others so I don't see the benefit.

 

I installed the Amsoil one - it plugged up. I saw no difference in how black the oil got and when it did, but I imagine using the right filter on a regular basis may reduce the soot content of the oil.

 

We had some 40 ambulances with 7.3's and the oil was changed about every 5-6k miles. No bypass filters were used and from time to time some failure would happen and the oil was changed in less than a 1k. I saw no difference in 1k to 6k on the oil As a side note I can show you a few of the trucks with close to 1 million miles without an engine replacement. They are not ambulances anymore! I looked into it when I got my truck but reading about it I could not see a good reason. The best thing to do is pull a small oil sample and send to a lab for analysis for condition. I have for years and according to samples I go about 12-15k between changes.

 

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me.

 

I run the amsoil bypass. I replace the filter once a year. I change the oil and main truck filter every 5k. I didn't install the filter with the intention of extending drain intervals. I did it to simply keep the oil as clean and contaminate free as possible. I don't see a negative to clean oil.

 

I think you are using a high quality filter. I have been using the LF9691. It has a Stratapore filter and the venturi. It may be one of the best filters for the 7.3 without switching to a bypass setup.
Since I do not have a cat on my truck I can add a zinc and phosphorus additive.



BBD

 

BBD,
How much of this bottle do you use at an oil change. Also what is your theory on using this with a diesel oil that already has zinc and phosphate. I was reading about this on the forum and a few guys suggested this as the new CK4 oils are using less zinc and phosphate. But supposedly the new T6 uses more moly instead of zinc and phosphate, not sure if that is true. Some guys say no additIves and other use this or some other product like amsoil.
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I am told that the industry is getting away from zinc and phosphorus because they can harm or plug up a catalytic converter.
My truck does not have a cat so I feel it is safe for me to add. The instructions say add one bottle per gallon of oil but I only use one bottle per oil change. If I remember correctly, I think Royal Purple uses a high zinc and phosphorus combination in their diesel line.

BBD

 

I have an FS2500 and am about ready to just take it off the price of extra filters and the shipping for them are ridiculous. When I was changing filters in it the oil got just as black as it does now and I change mine every 5k also to me it's just waste of money to have a bypass filter but that's just my opinion.

 

The Racor replacement filter elements I use were about $15-$18 each when I first installed my Racor system, but now they are anywhere from $28-$35 each, depending on where you get them. I had partially addressed this cost increase by changing bypass elements every other oil change, but I was putting nearly 20K miles per year on the truck at that time. Now that I'm down to roughly 8K miles per year, I'm considering removing the system once I use up all the replacement elements I have in the garage. Not sure, though... I do like the extra oil cooling capacity I get from the extra large bypass canister hanging on the inside of the truck frame.

 

Regarding the oil turning black, have read where gapless rings helped. Oil still turned black, but at a much slower rate.

 

I think that the typical drain and fill only changes around 84% of the oil. As soon as we start our trucks (after an oil change), the oil up top is pushed into the pan where it mixes with the clean oil and to some degree contaminats the clean oil.

You can change around 99% of your oil by disconnecting the CPS. Draining the oil in the pan and leaving the plug out. Then crank the engine a few seconds, pause, then crank for a few more seconds. This pushes the oil in the HPOP reservoir into the rails and down into the oil pan.

Then by adding fresh oil into the HPOP reservoir, (a pint at a time) you can push more old oil out of the system by cranking the engine. Each time you crank the engine you should see more dirty oil running out of the bottom of the oil pan.

The new oil you add to the HPOP reservoir will push out the old oil in the rails and the new oil remains in your engine, for the most part.

As the new oil makes it way down the rails some of the new oil will be expelled because it will reach the closer injectors that have already been flushed as the oil near the end of the rails is flushed.

So you may need to add around 8 pints of oil (a pint at a time) to the HPOP reservoir to flush the 6 pints remaining in the HEUI system (that the drain and fill does not change).

This will induce air into the system, so after the desired amount of flushing is achieved, put the plug back into the oil pan, top off your filter and install, then top off your engine, reconnect the CPS and crank for a minute.

Before doing this I recommend cleaning the battery posts and swapping driver's side to passenger side and passenger side to driver's side. I also recommend topping the batteries off. I place one lead of the battery charger on one battery and the other lead on the other battery. It tops them both off nicely.

Just a suggestion...

BBD

 

While I don't doubt that a significant amount of used oil remains in the system after a change, I don't really think all that effort is necessary. These engines run for 600,000 miles or more just with normal oil changes every 5k-8k miles. Besides, how long do you think your injectors and batteries will last if you subject them to this kind of abuse every oil change?

 

Maybe this could be a once a year kind of thing.. ?

It does take a lot of cranking to get the air out. I had no idea that this affected my injectors?

I do drive around 40k a year and I like to have the most amount of clean oil in the system.

BBD