Can I clean my used oil with an Amsoil Ea filter?

[Deontologist]

I have a rusted Amsoil filter that was replaced, for free, by Amsoil. It arrived with some small spots of rust, but the media was fine, and the Amsoil tech I called said that the filter would be fine for use regardless of the rust, but sent me a new one anyway.

Anyway, I have some used oil. If could somehow ensure that 100% of the used oil passed through the Amsoil's synthetic microglass media, wouldn't the oil be mostly free of wear metals? I had the oil tested by Wix and the TBN is still strong at over 4, and viscosity was within grade. I was thinking about using the oil for perhaps a lawn mower. Not that I can't afford fresh oil. I'm more curious as to whether this would work.

The filter is a cartridge filter, not a canister filter, so it should be relatively easy to ensure that all the oil passes through the outside of the cartridge and into the cartridge and then back out the filter.

 

[The motor guy]

Funny I was just thinking about this! There was a guy on here a while back that made a filtering setup. My thinking is you can, but the problem is you aren't ever going to be able to filter it well enough to filter out the wear metals, so say for example you let it drain into an oil pan that you've drained several other fluids into like gear oil, you may end up contamination it with excess metals.

 

[The motor guy]

I think oil has to be filtered for other uses other than burning in an engine again though.

 

[GumbyJarvis]

FWIW, I've ran used motor oil (0/5/10w30, Conventional/Blend/Synthetic/HDEO/Whatever) in lawn equipment before, and that was straight out of a 2005 2.3L Ranger with usually a Purolator Classic 20195 then ran in a Saturn, and then whatever didnt burn off went the lawn equipment.

Before that we used oil ran in an 87 Sierra 1500 as well

This was circa 2008, the riding lawn mower ran fine, as did the two push mowers. 5 acres of grass every weekend, on average, in Florida. Rust eventually got the deck and body of the tractors. The engines still run though lol

Shoot I'd reuse the L20195 Purolators off the truck on the riding mower as well.

Anyway. Yes you can, I wouldn't bother and just dump the oil in the mowers myself, but if prefiltering it is something you wanna do, itll be fine. From my experience, it worked fine. As I said, prior to this we used it out my my dads old Sierra, so about 16 years of reusing my oil between his truck and then later on my Ranger and his Saturn before the body of the mowers were shot, but not the engines.

We changed it every 75-100 hours or so as well.

Once the oil was done in the mower. It was saved for a heater where it was burned off for the chicken/duck coop during winter time (I know. Its florida, winters aren't too cold, but there can be pretty good frost in the mornings at times)

I think now he does the same thing with the new mowers as well.

Edit: I've heard on here before that people dont get why others use used motor oil in their lawn equipment. But hey, never had an issue, this oil would have 5K from the trucks, 3k from the Saturn, 100 or so hours on lawn equipment, and it kept the animals warm in the winter time.

Everything still runs too. Except the chickens and ducks. Some other critter got them.

 

[Railrust]

I think if you had a way of filtering that oil, it'd probably be fine for lawnmower use. Most lawnmower engines are pretty prehistoric anyway...crankshaft and piston together...no bearings, no liquid cooling, no oil pump...just oil being splashed around in that crankcase. When you take apart a lawnmower engine, you'll see that the connecting rod/crankshaft relationship allows for some "slop", some junk. It's a pretty big clearance and I think they compensate a little bit for dirty oil...think about it...the engine is operating inches off the ground...with dirt, dust, sand...all sorts of stuff literally having the chance to be sucked by the air cleaner and into that engine.

Now personally I wouldn't put anything but clean new oil into a mower, but I think recycled/filtered oil should be fine.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

It would be a lot better for an oil burner furnace/stove and you wouldn't even have to filter it. Great for shop heat.

 

[krismoriah72]

Call me simplistic.. but if you drain used oil it is already filtered to the extent of the filter on the engine.

The true test would be to do a double UOA.

1) Test oil with original filter.

2)Install new filter, run vehicle, then test again.

 

[WyrTwister]

Re-filtering " drained " oil . Sounds like a very good chance at a large mess ! :-(

I agree , burn it in a heater .

 

[MolaKule]

You can only filter out solid particles down to 20 microns.

What you can't filter out are the oxidized and degraded additive chemistry and sheared Viscosity Index Improvers.

 

[DGXR]

Short answer: go for it. Your lawnmower likely will not care since the oil grade is good and additives are adequate.

Long answer: Your used oil will still have suspended solids and wear particles after passing 100% through the Amsoil filter. The Amsoil filter is high quality, so the question about whether those remaining particles/solids will cause wear in the engine or if they are too small to be concerning, who knows. Bypass (secondary) filtration is the only setup that can effectively purify used oil to extend the service life beyond what a normal full-flow filter can do, regardless of its efficiency. But as Molakule's comment above points out, even Bypass filtration cannot fix sheared-down oil and depleted additives.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted by Deontologist
... I had the oil tested by Wix and the TBN is still strong at over 4, and viscosity was within grade. I was thinking about using the oil for perhaps a lawn mower.
Leaving it a little longer in the first engine (within safe limits) would be as economical, and a lot less bother and mess. Then use suitable fresh oil in the mower.

As Mola said, filtering can't fix degradation.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted by MolaKule
You can only filter out solid particles down to 20 microns.


If the filter is rated at say 99% @ 20u then it will capture some of the particles below 20u. It's not a cliff cut-off on efficiency vs particle size.

 

[bbhero]

True ^^^^

Wix regular filter is 50% at 6 microns... 95% at 20 microns.