Oil & Fuel Filter System for used oil

[Dakota_male]

Greetings, Have you built a Filtering system for used oils? What type of pump did you use? How did you set it up? Pictures are always nice!

I plan to to set up a filtration System. I plan to use a Frantz filter. Thanks Richard

Great idea to filter used gear oils or lubrication oils. We do it at work and have saved a bundle, easily paying for the equipment within a year. This is what we purchased see link. http://www.velcon.com/documents/1691-R7Rev06-07.pdf
You don't have to buy one like this, you could easily make one like you are researching for now. Some of our filters will filter down to 1/2 micron or even remove water if needed. We regularly pump out gear boxes filtering it both ways, saves a bundle, retuning the oil to a nice honey color..

 

[Bob Rooks]

I don't think people are saying do not do it Valley. The thing is I have 11 motors on my place. I change my car every 3,000 miles or about 4 times a year, my truck every 5,000 miles or 3 times a year, my tractor every 50 hours or 2 times a year, and everything else like boats and lawn mowers once a year. I buy quality oil like Rotella and Quaker State and it cost me less than $150 per year to do this. My cheapest engine that I maintain is my 13HP engine in my generator and if it were to blow up due to using old oil it would cost $400 to replace. Just does not seem worth the risk to me or 99% of the others out there.
Chris

I'm with you Chris. Spending millions to save thousands isn't cost effective.
I just change the oil and filters and put in new. Can't hurt anything.

Hey Richard, just an aside: I've had many intermediate and advanced skiing lessons from good folks like you and it has helped me greatly.
I can get down the Daisy slope without falling down now (Just kidding) My best run ever was the 14 mile downhill on Mer de Glace in La Valle Blanche from Punta Helbronner, Italy into Chamonix, France. That was a real ball-buster for me.

 

[valley]

Curtis, Thanks, Thats the kind of thing I want to look over. Glad you took the time to respond.
Well! Today is a Powder Day. Time to make some turns. Hi HO Hi HO its off to ski we go!!!!!!!

 

[Bob Rooks]

Well! Today is a Powder Day. Time to make some turns. Hi HO Hi HO its off to ski we go!!!!!!!

Here we are!

 

[valley]

Top of Sky Chair! We have season passes there too.

 

[valley]

Decota, when you say "we" do you mean at the Machine Shop? I looked at what you sent and will look closer. Most of us have burned, spread or thrown our used oil away. It doesn't seem like the best way to use this resource. Think of just ten or a hundred of us over the years all we have thrown away. I had a chance once to participate in rebuilding of a large piston driven aircraft engine. We were told that the aircraft industry recycles their oil. That sounded like the right way to do it then...and now. Richard

 

[Diamondpilot]

All oil is recycled if taken to the proper place. Why do you think your local auto parts store or even Jiffy Lube is willing to take it off your hands? It because they get about $1.25 to $2.00 per gallon depending on the market.

Just filtering oil is not enough. The additive package is what is lost over time. Why do you think auto manufactures advise to change your oil at a set mile or time interval.


Chris

 

[Bob Rooks]

I think y'all are talking about re-refined oil, which is altogether a different animal.

 

[Dakota_male]

valley.
At work (the generating station)we use the described portable filtering cart to clean up lubricating oil, in bearings, gear boxes even while tranfering new to a gear box it gets filtered, unless these lubes to high temperatures it should last a long time. Our turbine oils usually will last 20 yrs. One portable filter skid is an Electrostatic oil filter. look this one up..it is pretty cool.

 

[SPIKER]

the system we had built a long time ago, was used to clean most oils up enough to be used in waste oil burner (which was basically a oil furnace type unit that someone had modified to run on waste oil.)

the pump was a small gear pump (hydraulic pump off of a truck or tractor which was a junk part that was laying around in scrap pile where he worked.) A power steering pump would probably also work for what we did. It ran off a small electric motor, belt drive. had some small hyd hoses for inlet & pressure side out to filters. the large roll of terry cloth probably filtered most of the junk out prior to going through the other filters. the oil went to a CLEAN tank after passing through the filters. once the 1st pass/batch was done the pump was set to run / circulate the clean tank. after a while the tank would be off honey colored and would be mixed with a small amount of kerosene and run through the shop heater.
edit in: (the kero was used to clean up the filters and left to self settle often and then siphoned off to be mixed with the used oil later.) the JUNK at the bottom was then dumped into the terry cloth pre-filter. this we never cleaned, in-fact we never even replaced it that I can remember... ti was run for 5+ years, until they moved & system was left for new homeowners...)

This worked well and probably could be used in an old engine that was leaking or burning bad, I would not recommend re-using oil this way for most any other type engine as new oil is less expensive than the cost to run the pumps and keep the filters cleaned....

We cleaned 100+ gallon a year this way when I was kid in the 70's & heated garage the oil came from shop and a small trucking company where my brother-n-law worked the oil was burnt @ his place with little to no soot. Furnace that was used was dual combustion chamber and had a heat reclaim blower in the exhaust chimney. 5 min of running you couldn't get within a few feet of that thing... (lower chamber was fire brick lined with a large rolled steel tube in the center that the flame was burnt into/onto) top chamber was not lined and had a sheet-metal blower around the unit which blew hot air into shop/garage using a round fan similar to what is used in barns a lot now. (ya there as no guards on any of this stuff :0)

Mark

 

[valley]

Thanks Mark, There is a thread on this forum where a guy made an oil burner from a water heater and did a nice job of it. A few years ago a friend made a nice oil burner, the only thing he didn't do was filter the drain oil, and the burner plate filled up with crud that could have been filtered in the manor you discribed.I like the idea of a blower I have on on our wood stove. The fan is from our microwave that stoped working. Richard

 

[valley]

Dakota, A lot of information was available just looking up VELCON. They make units for the U.S. ARMY,the Aviation industry and for just about everything one can think of. Richard

 

[valley]

Dakota, I Googled ELECTROSTATIC OIL FILTRATION. Almost everything can be filtered that way. I have a passive Electrostatic Filter on the furnas. These are high voltage electrically charged filtration units even for cooking oils. Well! We even paint many thing that way. Thanks much. Richard

 

[Dakota_male]

Hi Valley. I forgot about the simple oil filter which was on my 1965 50CC Honda motorcycle. The engine oil filter was a centrifugal on the end of the crank shaft. It spun the oil before allowing it to thru the crank. Removed a lot of junk. Very simple and effective.

 

[Scooby074]

Personally i think its too much risk for little reward. While you could filter most of the particulates out of the oil, the additive package has degraded, and most likely the oils acidity has increased. I dont see how this could be done cheaply as the necessary filters and equipment is not inexpensive.

Filtering and cleaning hydraulic and gear oils is a different and more reasonable operation than trying to re-use engine oil just due to the chemistry involved. IC engines are a pretty dirty and acidic place.

I do my part for the environment by returning my engine oil to the store and let the recyclers deal with the chemistry and filtration involved.

 

[valley]

Dacota, When I was looking up electorstatic filtration I came across discriptions of centrifugal filtratation. Seen it done with blood. Its good, its all good. Richard

 

[Dakota_male]

If you think those cool we also have coalescence oil filters that'll remove up to 100 gals of water / hour from turbine lube oil sumps. They work something like a gortex jacket liner. It will allow oil through but catch the free water in it. there are RO units too.
None of these are any good for engine oils unless you just want to clean it for burning it for heating..

 

[Bob Rooks]

We use these for fuel but they can centrifuge engine oil as well.

 

[Rich Waugh]

Hi Valley. I forgot about the simple oil filter which was on my 1965 50CC Honda motorcycle. The engine oil filter was a centrifugal on the end of the crank shaft. It spun the oil before allowing it to thru the crank. Removed a lot of junk. Very simple and effective.

As I recall, those little Hondas didn't have pressure lube; they just used splash lubrication and that little thingy on the end of the crankshaft was called an "oil slinger." It threw the oil all over the crankcase so it lubed the rod journal, too.

Rich

 

[valley]

Dacota, That would be a membrane filter, right? I heard of useing chamois to filter petrol.