NAPA 4070 Coolant Filter Results

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This filter was installed on a particularly nasty engine. Even after doing a strong citric acid flush twice, this engine persisted in dropping heavy material into the coolant.

Only thing I could figure is that this engine must have enough "dead spots" in the coolant jackets that water flow through the block just can't hit them when flushing after a cleaning. In the future, we will be using a pulsating system to do the final flush. A lot of research indicates that the surging nature of a pulsating system overwhelms the flow area enough to blow out spots of dead flow in a cooling system.

The engine here is a closed cooled marine engine that circulates engine coolant through its engine, as well as its exhaust manifolds.

In order to assure maximum effectiveness of this system, the block drains and manifold drains were replaced with threaded nipples, all plumbed to the filter head, mounted below the level of the skirt of the block. Long story made short: Both lighter and heavier contaminates are left with nowhere to settle. Anything that seeks the lowest point in the cooling system finds its way being sucked toward the coolant filter. These nipples also create a flow path where there was not one before. The lowest points of the entire system are under suction. This is not a "bypass" course. Every single drop of coolant that goes through the drain nipples goes through the coolant filter. Period. The return from the coolant filter is also not a bypass. It is connected directly to the suction port of the circulation water pump (The one circulating engine coolant, not the raw water pump that sucks in sea water).

This go around, the coolant remained free of contaminants. Clear, and no sediment in the coolant reservoir.

The filter?









In the last pic, you can see how absolutely pasted the filter media is. You can also see how clean the center tube is, even after contaminating it a little with my sad filter cutting and draining skills. Would have drained it by punching a hole in the bottom, but didn't want to lose any sediment, for maximum appreciation of the nastiness.

In the future, I plan to use the block drains on both land and marine engines for coolant filter installs. Maybe drill out the restrictor cap for a little more flow. I've cut them out completely before to use them as full flow filters in heater core lines to protect heater cores, so they will flow a lot in modified full flow mode.
 
Put one on my 87 Jeep 4.0 about 3 years ago. While not as nasty as yours, I had several teaspoons of grit.Could be that's why my last water pump lasted only 3 years. All is well now. A good add on project!
 
No idea on history of the engine. It's run at least 3000 hours since 1988. Verified original engine.

This is an iron block GM 454 with iron heads, and iron exhaust manifolds. The cooling system also has a giant cupronickel heat exchanger that I am pretty sure weighs at least 100 lbs.

The previous exchangers died due to a combination of age, and abuse/neglect. At a cool $1800 A piece, great lengths are being taken to prevent future issues. When sediment gathers in the heat exchangers, it causes an imbalance in thermal loads that fractures the tubes. Not fun.

We are of course using a stout HDEC due to the multiple metals in the system: Iron, aluminum, cupronickel, brass, copper, stainless steel, and solder.

She doesn't even think of crossing 160° since all services performed.
 
That's similar to what my F-450 caught on the first coolant filter-inside of the filter looked like a sandbox, coolant in it when I bought it had ancient green turned brown, not sure if it ever had SCAs in it or not. Subsequent changes have been a lot better. Guessing you replace it with a blank/no SCA filter and leave it on?
 
Originally Posted By: GregGA
Put one on my 87 Jeep 4.0 about 3 years ago. While not as nasty as yours, I had several teaspoons of grit.Could be that's why my last water pump lasted only 3 years. All is well now. A good add on project!


i've been thinking of adding one to my XJ, how did you plumb yours? Using the block drains sounds like a great idea. Got to think about how to do that on the XJ.
 
Yes. 4070 has no SCA. Part numbers for SCA filters start at 4071, and work their way up numerically by amount of SCA.

This engine is now using ELC coolant, so no SCA is ever needed.

Using the block drains is not hard. Find out the block drain thread, but barbed nipples that will screw in. Buy appropriate nipples for the filter head. My advice? If you are doing a block drain setup, make sure that you include shut-off valves in the fittings between the filter head and the nipple. The NAPA 4019 filter head is standard pipe thread. Just hit up your plumbing section at a decent hardware store and get the valves and nipples you need. Why? If you have the filter head hooked to the block drains, every filter change will dump the entirety of your cooling system.

But, if you ever do want to dump the whole thing, just remove the filter and open both valves.
 
if it's iron block and iron head, you need to use old American green coolant that protects iron which has a much higher pH. modern coolants are formulated for aluminum block and head, its pH is just above neutral.
 
The ELC we are using is designed for iron truck engines with huge brass/copper radiators, and other mixed metal systems. That is exactly what this cooling system is.
 
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