Possible oil blowby solution

[Cheaper Jeeper]

My old F250 has had a bit of a blowby problem as long as I've had it. Part of it is the actual quantity of blowby gases and at least part of it is probably due to the fact that with the Banks tubo kit, the CDR never sees much vacuum.

So, I decided it needed an oil trap. I decided to make the body of it out of 4" PVC and the body of the unit is threaded so that the bottom half screws off to allow you to dump the trapped oil back into the crank case. This removeable collection chamber has about a 1 quart capacity. I initially built the unit with 1/2" inlet and outlet tubes, and unfortunately, this resulted in excessive backpressure and the engine started puking oil out of the dipstick tube.

So I went back to the drawing board and enlarged the inlet and outlet tubes to 3/4". The original design included a 90 degree elbow inside on the inlet tube inside the main chamber to aim the vapor stream at the inside wall of the oil trap chamber. The idea was that the oil vapor colliding with the wall of the chamber would cause it to condense and then collect in the bottom of the chamber. While this resolved the backpressure issue, it didn't trap much oil.

So, I got rid of the inlet elbow that aimed the vapor stream towards the inside wall of the chamber and replaced it with a straight pipe that went down to within 1-1/2" of the bottom of the chamber. Then I got some very coarse steel wool (# 4 size) at the hardware store and stuffed a bunch of it into the upper part of the main body so that the oil vapor would have to pass through it to get to the outlet.

So far I've only driven it one day to work and back (about 50 miles). No backpressure issues or oil puking out of the dipstick tube. When I screwed off the collection chamber (after letting it sit overnight) and looked inside, LO AND BEHOLD! It had about 1/4" of oil in the bottom! At least 3 or 4 ounces.

In terms of how much it is trapping, the installation of this new design just HAPPENED to coincide with my failing an emmissions test. It blew a 59% on the opacity test without the oil trap (the limit is 55%) and failed. After installing the oil trap I ran it through again the next day and it blew a 43% on the opacity test and it PASSED!

Before installing the oil trap it was burning through a quart of oil every 200 miles or so. On a 50 mile trip that would be about 8 ounces. Since the trap had about half that much in it, and my exhaust opacity results were reduced by over 25%, it looks like this oil trap has reduced my oil consumption by around 50%. Since some of the oil consumption is undoubtedly oil getting into the cylinder past the rings and past the valve guide seals (which I'm convinced are shot) I think its pretty safe to say that the oil trap is catching nearly all the blowby oil that was going into the intake. Before it blew a big blue cloud of smoke every time I stepped on the throttle. Now it almost never blows any blue smoke and I can actually see the black smoke it makes when pulling hard!

Since my main concerns were the amount of oil vapor going through the turbo, and the fact that oil into the intake concentrates in the back two cylinders (causing them to overheat and develop head gasket leaks), I'm really happy with the results. I can handle it burning a quart every 300-500 miles as long as it isn't killing my turbo or eroding my headgaskets...

 

[FordGuy100]

Man that is BA . Sounds like you have a lot of blowby though....that is some crazy oil consumption you got going on there. Maybe a dose of autoRx would cut that down

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Any pics of that device? I can kinda-sorta make it out by what you say, but visuals always help.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

Man that is BA . Sounds like you have a lot of blowby though....that is some crazy oil consumption you got going on there. Maybe a dose of autoRx would cut that down

', I put a dose of AutoRx in it at my last oil change. The problem is that it was getting rid of a quart every 100 miles at the time and by the time it hit 500 miles it had burned half of the AutoRx - along with the 5 quarts or so of oil it burned. After less than 1000 miles the consumption is already way down - to about half what it was (1 quart every 200 miles).

Now that I've got the oil consumption going the right way (reducing), I'm going to buy another dose of AutoRx and pour in it - to see if it will continue to do what its advertised to do and reduce the oil consumption even further.

Like I said, the blowby is only part of the oil consumption. I'm fairly sure some oil is getting past the rings, and I know that some is getting past the valve stem seals. When it sits and idles a couple of minutes (like at a stoplight) OR after compression braking down a hill, the first time I romp on it, it will STILL blow a big puff of blue smoke. Those are classic symptoms of leaking valve stem seals, and I don't think that the AutoRx is going to do anything to improve that.

Though if the AutoRx unsticks the rings like it is supposed to it should put a double whammy on reducing oil consumption - by reducing the amount of oil getting past the rings, while at the same time reducing the amount of compression gasses getting past the rings into the crankcase - which is the root cause of the blowby problem in the first place. At least that is what I'm hoping for.

I'll get some pictures of the new oil trap and post them up here as soon as I can - sometime in the next few days.

 

[Diesel JD]

If you get your blowby problem under control between the benefits of the AutoRX and your oil trap you'll probably be down to very little oil consumption. I think most or even all 6.9s burn some oil past the valve stem seals but I don't know that I like making them "positive" like they were on the 7.3s. They had no oil consumption till you got them beat up a bit or had a LOT of wear on them but they also dropped a few more valves than 6.9s.

 

[DeepRoots]

my truck drank oil with the stock ATS system. Getting blowby from the valve covers without a baffled section just doesn't work.

I wire welded a 3/4inch elbow onto the timing gear cover (ip bolt access cover).
ran a hole to the cdr plumbed to the intake. Don't consume more than a cup of oil between oil changes.

 

[Diesel JD]

You and me have a similar system. I do not like the ATS CDR system, its just not very good.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

You and me have a similar system. I do not like the ATS CDR system, its just not very good.

FWIW, neither is the Banks IMO...

Anyways, here are some pictures of what I built.

Inlet pipe

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Outlet pipe

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Separating the two halves

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Upper assembly

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Steel wool in upper assembly

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Lower assembly - with trapped oil

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Hose routing from fill neck

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Location of installed trap

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You'll note the red grease on the threads where the bottom catch-can screws off. It helps prevent any oil from blowing up and out past the threads as well as keeping them lubed so that it screws off easily for emptying...

 

[RLDSL]

THat looks like a great breather filter

If you wanted to automate the oils return to the oil pan it would not be hard.
it looks like you have that thing mounted high enough where the bottom of it is around the same height as the front inspection cover in front of the injection pump. You could pull that plate and weld a fitting on there for a hose, and get a replacement one way valve from a Racor CCV breather setup ( Isuzu NPRs had a similar factory oil trap with a one way valve, that valve might be even cheaper )and plumb it in between there and the bottom of your oil trap, then whenever the crankcase pressure drops, the oil will drain back on it's own, and you will have made yourself basically the same thing as a Racor CCV 4500 for about $300 less

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

THat looks like a great breather filter

If you wanted to automate the oils return to the oil pan it would not be hard.
it looks like you have that thing mounted high enough where the bottom of it is around the same height as the front inspection cover in front of the injection pump. You could pull that plate and weld a fitting on there for a hose, and get a replacement one way valve from a Racor CCV breather setup ( Isuzu NPRs had a similar factory oil trap with a one way valve, that valve might be even cheaper )and plumb it in between there and the bottom of your oil trap, then whenever the crankcase pressure drops, the oil will drain back on it's own, and you will have made yourself basically the same thing as a Racor CCV 4500 for about $300 less

Good idea! I was thinking of the exact same thing using a rattle-ball type PCV off of an older car. I got as far as trying to think of where I could easily plumb a return into the engine and really only came up with one idea that wouldn't be more work than it was worth. My idea was to install a T-fitting into the existing breather hose off the oil filler neck and use that as my return. With the one-way valve in there it would keep pressure from going in through the return when the engine is running. One of the biggest benefits of an automatic return like that is that the unit could be made about 1/3 smaller since it wouldn't need such a large catch-can. Reducing the catch can capacity (height) by half would reduce the overall size by about a third. I also want to add a real bracket for it - being zip tied to the AC hose and AC compressor bracket works, but I'd like it to be more firmly and securely mounted.

I may add an auto drain like that in the near future. This was just one of those "necessity is the mother of invention" type deals since I had to do something quick to pass emissions. Fortunately I had already been playing around with it and had most of it fabbed already. That's the only thing that made it possible for me to do the final version modifications (adding the straight downtube and steel wool) in time to get it installed and operational in time to pass emissions before my tabs actually expired.

 

[Agnem]

Sounds and looks very similar to the weed sprayer filter that Huff pioneered, and I tried out many years ago. If you don't want to build one, just get one of these.

 

[david85]

Cheeper, you did such a nice job with that I almost wish I had an oil comsumption problem so I had a reason to make something like that. I'm funny that way . You gotta love it when you make something with your own two hands that does exacty what you wanted it to.

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

Thanks David85. I'm already thinking I may redesign it again to put the inlet on the side down low. I'm thinking that if the bottom of the inlet is about 1/2" above the bottom of the catch-can even when it starts to fill up, enough of the inlet will stay above the oil level to keep it from bubbling and splashing up and saturating the steel wool - which could lead to more of it getting past the steel wool and into the outlet tube. I'm thinking that if the inlet is low enough, once the oil gets to a certain depth it would just drain back down the inlet tube into the engine every time th eengine is shut off.

If I relocate the inlet so that it also serves as a drain, I won't even need to make it screw apart in the middle. I can also install an internal magnet in the bottom and line the bottom half it with steel window screen to prevent any steel wool fragments from getting out of the inlet/drain tube and back into the engine. My main goals for the redesign is to make it significantly smaller and allow it to auto drain back into the engine. I'm thinking with the new design I can make the next one out of 3" PVC and make it only about 2/3 as tall.

BTW, I ordered some more AutoRx today. I ordered THREE bottles this time. One to put in now and run for the rest of this oil change (to replace what's been burned off and diluted by adding oil) and two more for a second "treatment" application - after I do another oil change and complete the recommended 3000 mile "rinse/flush" cycle between treatments...

 

[69dieselfreak]

that is one sweet set up u got there

 

[Cheaper Jeeper]

that is one sweet set up u got there

Thanks man. It would be sweeter (IMO) if I didn't even need it. But since I do, and apparently so do some others, I thought I'd share what I came up with...