I am not against prefilling.
But what you are proposing is not really worth the hassle. Just pour in the center, pause, pour a bit more in. Done.
New oil in a bottle does not need to be filtered.
Here's a trick for pre filling filters
- Thread starter The motor guy
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But what you are proposing is not really worth the hassle. Just pour in the center, pause, pour a bit more in. Done.
New oil in a bottle does not need to be filtered.
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Do what you want. It was just an idea.
I love small funnels though. Can never have enough funnels. I just clean them and keep them in a clean plastic tool box that was just sitting unused.
Plus the hole in that funnel outlet is not filtering the oil. Maybe filtering it from a piece of foil seal or a dead mouse but that's about it.
dnewton3
Staff member
To be specific, the topic you propose (that of filling the filter on the upstream side, while using a funnel) has been discussed in some of the many, many, many other "prefill" threads. Your discovery isn't new, sir; it's rehashed stuff. It's an old subtopic of an older topic; both have been covered before.
You invited "opinions"; that's what you'll get. That's because there is no "science" behind these things; there's no SAE or JASO study that would infer any manner of credibility to any claim about prefilling.
What I can say with total certainty is that wear data shows no appreciable difference one way or another. I've got over 35k UOAs in my database. I know of some folks who do prefill, and the majority do not. There is not one iota of statistically significant difference in wear control by prefilling the filter. There is ZERO CORRELATION therein; none, zip, nada. And without correlation, there can be no causation. Therefore doing it does not harm the engine, nor does it help the engine. If you're into wasted efforts for no return on investment, that's fine by me!
Hence, your suggestion to prefill the filter via this special method (upstream of the media) is akin to shooting the horse after it was already beaten to death.
This pot gets stirred on a regular basis. Must be a hundred threads about pre-filling oil filters.well i see i really stirred the pot on this one.
I just wish all oil filters/cartridge filter housings were mounted vertically with the opening facing up or at least not upside-down.
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If it makes you feel better there might be a marginal benefit in just pre-saturating the media, lol.
MrQuackers
Site Donor 2024
Flavor injector
It's very odd and inconsistent that conventional BitOG wisdom holds that pre-filling a completely dry new filter is pointless, yet at the same time a fully functional anti-drainback valve is essential to prevent some of the oil from draining out of the filter between starts.
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I haven't seen one that said fill through the little holes. The reason nobody does is because half of it still spills over into the big hole anyways.This pot gets stirred on a regular basis. Must be a hundred threads about pre-filling oil filters.
It's coming from those who look at the differences between things that can make a difference in terms of it either blows-up the engine or not. With that kind of criteria to decide what things make a difference down the road, then nothing really matters except that the engine has oil in it.
It's been brought up before that trying to pre-fill an oil filter through the inlet holes on the base plate "might" be better way to do it instead of pre-filling through the center hole in the base plate. I do it through the center hole as I highly doubt that new oil is "dirty" enough to worry about. If anything in the new oil is large enough to be filtered out by the new filter, it will do so after one trip through the oiling system.
If you want to do it through the inlet holes past the ADBV so the new oil is filtered, maybe go get a new large syringe and use it for dedicated oil filter pre-filling. Use the tip of the syringe (get one with a blunt plastic end) to carefully push open the ADBV and inject the new oil into the filter. That idea hasn't ever been discussed that I can recall, just thought of it now.
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I bet if we knew half the stuff circulating in the engine we’d never worry about how dirty new oil is. It’s not a sealed system. There’s some junk in there. Heck, I bet over the course of a vehicle’s life a significant amount of debris gets in through the fill hole during changes, or even the dipstick hole during checks.
Bypass filters are likely the only meaningful solution.
Bypass filters are likely the only meaningful solution.
Too anal for me. Carry on. 
Okay, who am I to argue...
I retired from US Navy Submarine force in 2011. We had Fairbank-Morse (COLT now I think) 8-1/8 diesel's onboard. You had to turn the crank the pre-lube pump (by hand) to fill the oil system, pre-lube everything, before starting the Diesel. So....yeah.
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I've never pre-filled filters. I did it once or twice just to see if there was a difference, the oil light took the same amount of time to go out, and the engine sounded exactly the same. With that said, there is a huge difference between pre-filling a filter (or not) and a failed ADBV. If you don't pre-fill the filter, your engine will clack once during the oil change interval. If the ADBV fails, your engine will clack every single time you start it for the entire oil change interval.
This dude had a nifty video on prefilling vs not. The empty filter took four or five seconds to establish oil pressure, which to me seems worth the extra 20 seconds or so it takes to dump some oil into the filter before installing it. Just food for thought, I guess. Skip to 8:25ish if interested.
GROAN. Please search first.
I am also getting tired of this becoming a YT outlet. Anybody else in this camp?
Pre-Filling oil filters
I didn't see this posted yet, if it has I apologize. Also, this may not be the correct forum for it, but I thought it was pretty interesting to see the actual oil pressure delay.
bobistheoilguy.com
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