What's the correct way to use extended drain oil filters?

[Linctex]

I started working on piston engine aircraft in the 1980s.
It is VERY common in aviation to cut open aircraft engine oil filters (for various reasons)

I started to do this with various vehicles, also - more than 30 years ago.

Since I never saw any "metal" in any oil filter (just little carbon chunks) - I decided to run one (a Motorcraft FL-1a) for 30,000 miles with 3x 10K oil changes.

I did actually spin it off, drain it, and look it well over before refilling it and reinstalling it each time.

After 30,000 miles, it was just fine... a little more carbon bits, but really it was just fine.

I have reused oil filters numerous times in my life - people that say "don't ever reinstall one" are speaking from simple ignorance, and nothing more.

 

[ZeeOSix]

My vote is leave it on. The small amount of oil with only 5K miles on it left in the filter won't matter one bit. Leave sleeping filters alone.

 

[sir1900]

Originally Posted by wemay
Scenario:
OCI of 5K miles using Mobil 1 AP filters.

Which is best?
a. keep on the vehicle and just change the oil.
b. remove filter drain all the oil from filter and re-apply.
c. either one works, there's no downside with either.


C. Have drained and reinstalled numerous times. Never a problem. Perhaps I'm just lucky. The only reason I would keep the filter on and change the oil only is if accessibility to the filter is not as easy and/or will create a huge mess every time the filter is removed.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted by addyguy


+1 to this!

Do NOT understand going to all the effort to do all the things for an OC, and not changing the filter while you are there.


I find changing the filter to be messy and annoying, so I'd rather just do it every other time, especially when I know the Ultra can easily handle double OCIs for me with room to spare. I will do the filter every time on my Corvette while it's still under warranty but once that's over I will do double OCIs on it too. It's not a money issue, it just makes that oil change more enjoyable for me (the one without the filter change)