Oil Filter Conversion

[4WDKC]

Better to pump any oil than none....

The oil in the crankcase has been through the filter the last time you ran the engine. I'd guess it takes maybe a five minutes at idle to run the contents of the pan through the oil pump and filter and less at 2500RPM.

If you have metal filings or sand or dirt in the crankcase you have larger problems than what filter you are running on the engine.

Pumping no oil or dirty either way is going to cost you the crank, mine marred the crank and required it to be turned and oversized bearing which was $20 less than a new cast crank. So if you have a $500+ crank in it do you want to risk pumping dirty oil to the bearings and see how it plays out?

 

[bucket]

I have never seen a gasket between the adapter and the block on any of the Chevy engines that I have taken apart and at least half of them were virgins. Never seen a gasket in an overhaul kit for that either! New one on me

You are jogging my memory. Most of my recent engine cores are later models and from a 4x4 with an oil cooler adapter or an angle adapter. They all use a gasket in the center. I do now realize I have taken some apart without that gasket, but on the other hand I know I have taken some apart that did use the gasket. Maybe it was a later model type of thing, like '86 and up.

At any rate, I've put gaskets in the last few of my builds, lol.

 

[bucket]

There's two different styles of gaskets.

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[idahovette]

Yeah I've seen those come with the cooler line kits. They are separate with the GM kits but I think you get all of it with the napa-dorman kits

 

[bucket]

I've got a lot of those gaskets, but none of the big o-rings that go along with the filter/cooler adapters. Which leads me to believe that they get used with the regular threaded adapters.

I guess I really don't know. I'll pay more attention the next time I take apart a later model small block without a cooler.

 

[PrairieDrifter]

I've got a lot of those gaskets, but none of the big o-rings that go along with the filter/cooler adapters. Which leads me to believe that they get used with the regular threaded adapters.

I guess I really don't know. I'll pay more attention the next time I take apart a later model small block without a cooler.

Personally I’ve never seen a gasket come out with the adapter, I tore down an ass ton of small blocks while working at my uncles shop in high school. And I’ve only seen a few of them set up with the cooler system other than the one I’ve owned. That’s my experience with it anyways

 

[bucket]

You all have convinced me that I'm full of poop about the filter adapter using a gasket.

But the cooler adapters and angle adapters do use the gasket, it always stays stuck in the block when you take it apart. Speaking of which, I've seen some cooler adapter seal kits that have a steel shim gasket in place of the paper one. It must be thrown away and not used because it's too thick. It will let the big o-ring start puking oil in short order. Unless the parts stores finally quit selling that garbage.

 

[hatzie]

Pumping no oil or dirty either way is going to cost you the crank, mine marred the crank and required it to be turned and oversized bearing which was $20 less than a new cast crank. So if you have a $500+ crank in it do you want to risk pumping dirty oil to the bearings and see how it plays out?

ZERO oil pressure is gong to do a heluva lot of damage to the engine... end of story. This is why the wrenchies at GM etc put a bypass into the oil filter systems to keep oil flowing no matter what.

"Dirty oil" is a relative thing. The motor oil in the pan is either clean and new or it has some miles on it collected while being pushed through 25-30 micron filter paper. Sooo... The "dirty oil" is not going to have anything significantly larger than maybe 32 microns in it. If 32 microns for a few seconds is going to badly damage your rod and main journals you have a poorly manufactured crank with improper Iron alloy that won't heat treat at all or poor heat treat process performed on the journals.

If you have so much really big crap in the oil that it's going to seriously damage the crank in the few seconds the 25-30 micron filter is bypassing at 0°F you didn't properly clean the engine out after the machine shop worked on it. I always rod out those oil galleries with brushes and douche out the block several times with Kerosene or Diesel before assembly. I also douche out the oil cooler using Kero and compressed air or just plain replace it. I've seen several engines in impatient buddies rigs that were completely destroyed by sand or iron filings leftover by the machining operations... even after a round or two in a hot caustic jet spray machine... or crud in the oil cooler that they didn't flush out. The oil filter will not keep you safe from that stupidity.

Typically the filter only bypasses at startup when it's cold as hell or you are running oil that's way too heavy for the temps. Either way it stops bypassing pretty quickly after startup and as noted above the particle sizes will be small enough that they will pass through the filter anyway.

This is all I have to say about it.