Golden Jubilee
Posts: 8955
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:45 pm
Location: Canada's left Coast
Re: Oil bath Filter?
Here is a story with some small disaster in it. The business where I was employed for 37 years went from a few hundred heavy vehicles to about 2000 in the last few years. One of the management persons got one of his brain farts mixed up with reality and made the decision to send the used airfilters out for cleaning even though it very clearly said on the filter elements that any method of cleaning is not recommended. So hundreds of the filters were sent out to some BS laundry, washed and returned to service. The engine failure rate went up noticeably in a few weeks. Engines with under 100,000 km were giving all of the signs of older engines that should have over 2 to 3 million kilometers. On one of the full service and inspections that I was given, my apprentice located a bunch of holes that had been punched into the filter element that was in our service cart of parts. These were not some random filter failures, but the holes were clearly made deliberately by someone with a round punch. Each filter had a certificate of performance included in the recycled box. Every certificate varied ever so little but that is to be expected on a reconditioned filter. We went to the parts counter and asked to see a bunch of these filters and after looking at about 100 or so, we were able to determine that each and every one of them had holes punched in the filter medium to get the flow-bench numbers within spec. Needless to say, the contract to clean was cancelled and there was an effort to recover damages. When you think that a "dusted" engine can fail in only a few days in city traffic this was a disaster. Fortunately the detailed vehicle tracking showed which vehicles had ben subjected to the punched out filters and they were recalled and re-filtered immediately. I was told that an 8 litre heavy Diesel can cost over $20 thousand dollars to rebuild. Using the correct service products is so important.
There was a black and white TV series called 'THE NAKED CITY". It ran from 1958 - 1963. At the end of the each show, they would announce, "The Naked City has a million stories and this has been one of them". Don't worry, I keep myself dressed, I don't want to scare the neighbours. too much. I have adult pictures hanging in my shop, they do a more pleasant frightening
Artificial intelligence is no match for real stupidity....