Does anyone have any experience with the Spinner ll Centrifuge? They say it's on millions of engines in the trucking industry and industrial uses.
Just wondering if this is as good as "element" type bypass filters?
I believe Doug Hillary (Australia) uses them on his over the road trucks.
I, also, believe that you can get these on Mack trucks.

Joe Fihn

I had one on my Mercedes 240D and it worked very well. It made a cool sound when you shut off the engine. The only real problem is finding a place to mount them. They need to have a gravity feed with a large hose back to the pan. This is not possible with most new cars or pickup trucks. The filter also has to be mounted vertical which limits mounting possibilities.
I would get a spoonful of junk out of the filter each 10,000 miles.
Your engine also needs a really oversized oil pump like the Benz because the filter uses a gallon per minute of oil flow. This will pretty much rob the oil supply of most small engines.

I've seen good results with them, although Ican't tell you which UAO that I have might be with them.
One of our customers with large Waukesha natural gas engines found the Fleetgard sistems filled up completely in 1000 hours with group I oils, but almost nothing in group II.
I've seen some Toyota Truck and Scania engines where you had to chop away at the crud with a screwdriver and hammer.

Hi,
Joe I have had millions of kms experience with these wonderful centrifuge seperators

I have them retrofitted by Detroit at purchase to every new 500hp Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines I have purchased since 1998
This co-incided with commencing total use of Delvac 1 5w-40
They have enabled 100kkms OCIs and we now use cleanable SS 25micron mesh FF with them Previously I used Donaldson's excellent ELF FF filters which we changed at 100k - they were always completely empty after the centrifuge was fitted

I use the FM060 model which needs air to forceably return oil to the sump. The centrifuge holds about 600g of contaminant and takes about 10minutes to clean. If the paper insert is used the contaminants are very easily removed and disposed of. The capacity enables cleaning at every second OC in my fleet

Good oil flow is needed and the drain needs to be vertical in fall. The drain can be above or below the oil line but I always come in above

As they are audible in operation the driver can always tell if they are functioning. We have never had any problems and have never replaced a single part in seven years. They are able to be "recycled" to new vehicles

I believe that general engine wear has been reduced,the engines are cleaner because of the centrifuge. And by using a high quality synthetic 5w-40 HDEO of course

MANN-Hummel (Germany) are now the owners of the Spinner centrifuge name have purchased it from Federal Mogul some years ago
Centrifuge seperators have been fitted to many Euro engines over the years and are now being "encouraged" by Euro engine makers as part of extending OCIs with synthetic oils

They are a truely great product and much better than any by-pass filter IMHO

Check for my UOAs in the diesel section - "Detroit Diesel....."

Doug

I had a Honda Dream 305 1965 with a centrifuge. It was amazing how the contaminants could be so packed in that I had to dig them out with a screw driver. My oil still got dirty and needed changing. I put a TP filter on the Honda 500 because it had a spin on filter that I could use a sandwich adapter on. Actually it had a cartridge filter that I converted to take a spin on filter. One of my trucker customers with the Mack trucks with the centrifuges asked me which was best the bypass filter or the centrifuge. I asked a guy that knew. He was politically correct and told me to run the truck with the centrifuge for 10,000 miles and have the oil analyzed, then run it with the paper towel filter for 10,000 and have the oil analyzed.
I believe I remember cemtrifuges on some London Double Decker buses that could go 60,000 miles before the oil needs changing. I have a testimonial letter from a trucking company in Queensland with over a million K on a Detroit engine with no oil drains using depth filters. I sent a little Motor Guard to Shell Oil for a condensation problem on a drilling rig air compressor lube oil. On their large locomotive engines they use a lot of big Gulf Coast filters.
Shell Oil engineers have been studying a Detroit Series 60 Gulf Coast owned by Pepsi Cola of Gulfport Mississippi that still had the hone marks in the liners at over one million miles with two unnessary oil changes since new. They replaced the rings but could find no other wear. It uses Shell Rotella T 15-40. My biggest seller is the Motor Guard MG-30. The centrifuge wouldn't be practical for the people that buy it.

Ralph

Hi,
the MANN-Hummel centrifuge units are routinely installed on marine engines of up to 10,000hp
MAN-B&W, MTU-Detroit, Ssangyong, Wartsila are but some. These engines may have an oil capacity of 1500litres+ - the larger centrifuge units hold up to 6ltrs of dirt

It is important that the 10c paper insert is used on the wall of the centrifuge rotor cover and then the contaminants take a few seconds to remove - no digging!

I have used cartridge type by-pass filters on a variety of earthmoving equipment (dozers, scrapers, loaders etc.) and trucks - since the 1960s!. They were once common as a xtra spec option and installed externally alongside the hood on bonneted trucks. I do not know of a truck Manufacturer selling in OZ that offers them as an option now. The centrifuge seperator is a very different animal indeed

I would not start a new heavy diesel engine in any application without a centrifuge being installed first

For those wishing to use a TP or cartridge by-pass filter - great. This thread was however concentrated on the oil centrifuge - which incidently has been around for about 70 years!

Ralph - you said;
"I have a testimonial letter from a trucking company in Queensland with over a million K on a Detroit engine with no oil drains using depth filters."

Really!!!

I do not plan to commence a "...mine is best..." or "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" debate. For me I pay the bills and sign the capital cheques - if it does not pass the cost effectiveness/whole of life test it does not get purchased!
Many commercial equipment owners do not do this and that is why they still use mineral oils and the other "easy" technology that they feel comfortable with

I have however learnt to become very reticent about claims and testimonials.
An oft sold one of the classics in the heavy truck Industry is saying "...you get better fuel economy with XXX oil over YYY oil" Really????
Another is tyre brand and wear!

Unless facts and figures can be produced such claims can be quickly discounted - the variables usually overwhelm the "facts"

XS650 - the centrifuge model I use spins at up to 6000rpm

Doug

Hi,
I was selling the Frantz oil cleaner when I bought the 500 Custom. It was the V twin with the drive shaft. The gasket on the filter canister was the same size or close to the Chevy V-8. I found a nipple to replace the center bolt. I used a Frantz sandwich adapter with a Chevy V8 adapter plate. Then I screwed on a Motor Craft FL 1 A. A little Toyota filter would have been a little neater looking. The Perma-Cool universal adapter would have worked better. The Frantz depended on flow only to supply the Frantz. The Perma-Cool adapter has the spring loaded relief valve to keep oil going to the filter. I hung the Frantz upside down back in the saddle bag. There was a motor cycle club in the San Jose area that had Frantz Oil Cleaners on their Harley pan heads. I bet the sandwich adapters would work on the new Harleys with the spin on filters. You might find an old Mack truck in the salvage and pull the centrifuge off it. It might work on the bike.
I'm sending a MG-750 to a company that needs to filter 1000 gallons of dirty hydraulic fluid as it is pumped back into the equipment. They need a large one pass filter. It's an old design from the 20s. All I did was adapt it to take Kleenex Viva paper towels. At work I use Kleenex Wypall towels that I am told are the same.
I don't sell the Gulf Coast filter but if someone needs a lot of documentation check with them. They have shown such things as Shell Oil cost analysis on off shore drilling rigs. For military people or other goverment users they have a lot of information. I even saw a copy of a letter of thanks from Al Gore thanking a military unit for saving natural resources.
The Peterbilt that I mentioned is torn down by Covington Detroit in Nashville. It is all well documented. The Shell engineer even puts marks on the engine so that it won't be tampered with without his knowledge.

Ralph

If you want to have some fun, take the dirt from a spinner filter and dissolve it with some lacquer thinner in a glass jar. Then place a strong magnet next to the side of the glass jar. You will be amazed at the amount of metal that will be collected on the glass.

Here are some pics of a guy that installed one on his Dodge Ram with Cummins diesel. I am really interested in one too.

http://dodgeram.org/rides/14/John_P/index.html

I'd sure be interested in seeing comparison analysis between a spinner and a TP type filter such as the Frantz I've used for years - even better from a diesel, where soot accumulates relatively quickly and blackens the oil - statements as to the crud "scraped" from a spinner are well meaning, but sorta meaningless, since the construction of most bypass filters prevent similar inspection of what the have caught and retained.

Anyone done such a lab comparison, or particle count on oil run for a significant period of time?

The Mann-Hummel centrifuge spinner bypass filter is the best bypass filter coupled with synthetic oil for over the road trucks. The key to running a successful trucking business is to keep the rigs or other equiptment working. When you have down time because of service you are loosing money. The toliet paper bypass was excellent for it's time and still works wonderful. However, if you are changing the toliet paper rolls and adding oil lost often; your bottom line suffers.

Trucking and other company's have found that the spinner bypass coupled with synthetics and an occational oil analysis of all the drivetrain to maintain that bottom line has brought the trucking industry into a new arena of amazing proportion. I find it amazing to see Doug Hillary also using a cleanable stainless steel mesh fullflow. And further down the OCI if the fullflow is not even starting to load with crude because the Spinner is taking it out really sharpens the picture of where the industry is going. Time marches on!

The TP filters will outperform the centrifuge filters. Centrifuge filters are roughly 50% efficient at .5 micron or are "nominal" .5 micron filters.That was an old test, new centrifuges probably work better because they pull more acceleration. TP is still very efficient, like at least 90%, at .1 micron. The advantage of a centrifuge is that it can go MUCH longer between services.

When Ralph say that he can mix lamp black in oil, and then watch the oil come out clear in one pass with a TP filter - think about it. Lamp black is about .07 micron. Not even as large as .1 micron.

I just bought two Model 25 Spinner II models and will be installing soon and will note details here. I already use a Motorquard on the Dmax 02. Does a real good job of keeping soot in check with regular filter changes.

Dale

Hopefully I'll get my Frantz filter this week.

A centrifuge will only remove materials that has a higher specific gravity than oil. Water won't come out with one of these oil-driven centrifuges but does get removed in a separate motor driven centrifuge. The big advantage of the centrifuge is avoiding the cost (labor and element) of a bypass filter and the downtime to change it. I've used separate motor-driven centrifuges on locomotive sized and larger diesels. The oil is retained until contaminated by a fuel or coolant leak or until it needs to be drained for an engine overhaul.
http://www.alfalaval.com/ecoreJava/WebObjects/ecoreJava.woa/wa/showNode?siteNodeID=5380&contentID=-1&languageID=1
http://www.westfalia-separator.com/en/index.htm


Ken

Well, for what it's worth, I have sent Blackstone a 5000 mile sample using Delo 400 15/40 and my Frantz TP filter. I requested a particle count along with their usual analysis, and will post results when they arrive.

I'd be VERY interested in seeing similar comparisons against other brands/types of bypass or spinner filters...

We use them on quite a few of our 2-2750hp haul truck engines and while they do collect a lot of garbage on engines this big they still don't have enough capacity to keep the oil kleen. Same result with bypass filters on these engines. 1 advantage the spinner has over a filter is capacity, 1 disadvantage is the amount of oil required to drive a spinner. Most small engines dont have the oil pump capacity to drive one without starving the rest of the engine. The larger ones use over 2 gal. per minute to operate.

I remember back over twenty years ago when Frantz had an element for the Luberfiner 750 filters. If I remember right it was very effective but cost about 20 bucks. That was more expensive than the stock filter that wasn't as good at cleaning oil. I have been modifying the Fleetguard to take two rolls of Scott Kimberly Clark Center pull paper towels. It is similar to a high quality roll of toilet paper 16" tall and 8" wide with a 3" core. I was using three rolls of TP and two rolls of Kleenex Viva. When the Nelson filter company increased the size of the Fleetguard it made it easier to use the bigger element. one of my trucker customers tells me he found some towels at Sam's that work. The Scott Center pull paper towels are a lot more concentrated than regular paper towels which give them a lot more filtering ability. I have them set up at work on a smaller engine when someone wants to go about 30 thousand miles between changes. Comparing them to other smaller size paper towel filters I suspect an over the road truck would need a filter change about every 15 thousand miles and about 4 gallons of oil added. With oil analysis you could probably extend that. There are no magic filters. The oil must never be allowed to get dirty and the right amount of new oil must be added. I have read about adding the big filters after the centrifuge to get what the centrifuge misses. The centrifuge lets you go farther between depth filter changes. These were on large engines where the centrifuge was driven by electric motors or steam turbines.

Ralph

OK, I just completed a VERY informal test with my Frantz bypass filter, and involving a Fleetgaurd 3894 Microglas full flow filter in the first test, and an Amsoil/Donaldson Nanofiber full flow in the second.

Both test runs used Delo 400 15/50 for approximately 5000 miles - here's the particle count results:

Earlier test on left, latest one (Amsoil/Donaldson filter) on right



And here was the "Standard" report on wear metals on the last run - very close to the first, so won't post it:

Very interesting, thanks for posting that!

The upper test results you posted look very different, yet you say the "standard" report was very close so you're not including it. Could you explain for those of us not used to reading oil reports, what those differences in the upper results mean in real terms? They look very different to me.

I'm considering changing from a Frantz to a centrifugal filter on my 2.4L TD Toyota. The oil remains full of visible soot after at least 10 TP changes, this is running Mobil 1 by the way. Not that the Frantz hasn't done a good job keeping the rings freed off etc., but I just heard a reliable report of a similar truck running a centrifugal cleaner with "honey-colored' oil. My interest was piqued naturally!

Truckers can get away with installing a centrifuge because of their very long trips that evaporates moisture from the oil. A centrifuge will not absorb water. Cellulose has a stronger affinity to water than oil and acts as a strong oil dessicant. If you make lots of short trips the centrifuge won't do much good for extending your OCI.


Have a look at this thread:

Motor Oil + Water + Heat

So if I'm reading Gary - K7GLD's post correctly, the Eao allowed ~4 times the amount of particles in the oil, but the wear on the engine was virtually the same? Interesting.

I'm not sure how much of an issue water is in my case, but probably there is some in the fuel. I assume this and moisture driven out of the metal of the engine and exhaust system explains the steam at the tailpipe I see for maybe 5 seconds after starting up.

It sounds like the best combination would be a TP filter for water and finer particulates with a centrifuge to remove most of the soot and larger particulates, thereby reducing change intervals for the TP and the need to add new oil when changing the TP. Although with the issue of depleted oil additives, adding that new oil is probably a good thing...

The fellow with the centrifuge was also using a pre-oiler. Must try to talk to him in person and post more details.

The smaller centrifuges seem to need at least 1gpm of flow which rules out an engine like mine that has a sump of about 5 litres. I'm looking into the UK and Europe as I've heard smaller units are made there.

I know centrifuges are used on Belarus tractors and some old Japanese bikes, any other places to look for a smaller unit?

I should add that the centrifuge makers claim filtration down to 1/10th of a micron. Of course, like any filter, the question is can they remove the particulates faster than the engine can produce/ingest them?

Here's the smallest unit Mann & Hummel make: http://www.oilconditioningsystems.co.nz/...ec%20sheets.pdf

And just in case anyone gets the idea of cutting into the oil company's profits, the smaller unit uses a disposable cartridge that costs about $50.!

I have just now installed a spinner ll on my duramax diesel truck. The truck has had a motorgaurd on it for about 15k. I will wait 10k and do an Test and post the results.

Should be interesting.

Dale

Forgot to mention I run a preluber also 40psi to start before cranking.

Dale
Mobil 1 15/50

As is the engines if cared for will probably outlast the rest of the truck.

At our winery I frequently run a Westfalia Separator aka Centrifuge, to remove thick material from incoming juice and after fermentation, to remove yeast cells and bentonite at the bottom of the fermentation tank. Comes in, and goes out basically the same port at the top of the centrifuge. It is on a special timer, with relays and has a "self cleaning" method that uses water pressure to raise the bowl and "dump" the contents out the ports while still spinning, then drops back down into position and wine flow is allowed to continue. DON'T get it overloaded or out of balance though!

I also appreciate the didgeridoo from the Australian North end.

Attach a colostomy bag to that and it would sound like a bagpipe.

That's just so "wrong" of a conceptual view It's up there with goatse corporate symbols

TP4ME

Just wondered if you have any info on the Spinner vs. the MG oil tests?


BTW I have Mg and Spinner II in series. Eveything can go through the MG, but at 35 PSI the Spinner II has fluid thanks to pressure cutoff valve. So theoretically I have all bases covered:
40 psi prelubing, MG up to 35 psi and then, MG + Spinner II after 35 psi.

Mobile 1 15/50

No oil tests as I don't need them. Arrogant? Not if you do the math. No cleaner oil can be had on a vehicle, maybe better thatn new oil.

Also run B100 fuel (low soot) and a paper air filter
Aquaworksllc

I don't as I run a Frantz at the moment. I'm rigging up a backing plate/mounting for this used centrifuge I picked up. Probably too big for my truck though, without a secondary pump; I'm thinking about a power steering pump, but don't know if it generates enough flow or pressure?

What kind of pre-luber do you have again? Definitely a good idea those.

Any results on this test? Would be nice to know.

BUMP!

what do these look like?

I was actually contemplating getting the small Spinner filter like in the Dodgeram link above. After some thought I finally decided against it simply because I don't feel like pulling off the oil pan to insert a return line for the gravity feed. It's a good idea though, especially since lots of the OTR trucks use them. That's gotta tell you something right there.

X2

Once again i found a spinner 65II? at my local jy.It came off of a garbage truck.I got it all for 24.95! This is the 2nd one i buy.The first one for 20.00!I REALLY want to install it in my Toyota 22r truck!

If you've got a high enough volume pump, go for it. You just need to be able to handle the loss of flow bypassing the engine and with enough pressure to drive the thing.

Let's put it this way...if I found them as cheap as you have, I'd find something to install it on sooner or later. That's too neat a toy not to use.

Yeah,I'm keeping this for a loooong time.

Bought another one for 52.00.The moron giving prices forgot about the other ones i bought for 20.00 or so and this time he said 45.00 w/o tax! This one was a Model 96

You should have reminded him. FIFTYTWO DOLLHAIRS!!!! WADDA YOU SMOKIN', JOE??!!!! The last one was $20

I did and he seemed to have gotten a little irate,so i left it at that.

He should have been happy you're finding fine junque in his yard.

Some people react that way when business drops off. They get like drowning swimmers and squeeze the life out of anyone they can get hold of. Stop by a couple of times and not buy anything. Let him burn one and think about it.

Some people just can't accept making less money regardless of the economic environmental conditions. Some react by treating customers better ..and some react by milking everyone in every way that they can.

I even showed him a previous recpt and he still insisted that he wouldn't have sold it that cheap.

Maybe he figured out what they cost between visits. That might explain it.

Then it would be true if he said, "I wouldn't have sold it for that" ..he's just leaving off "if I knew what I was looking at was worth that much new".