Care when installing Oil Filter!

[Jess Liao <jessl@domain.elided>]

Well, this is probably an isolated incident.. nontheless..

Background:

My 170k miles Verde had seem steady diet of Castrol Syntech synthetic
oil for many years and had been flawless.  it sees a few track times an
year.

Now:

Of a sudden, it felt as the crank bearing, or the rod-to-crank bearing
was loose, and the condition deteriorated rapidly.. something is
obviously wrong so i have the engine apart to see what's going on
in there.... okey i didn't do that, my mechanic did that...

What happend?

The main bearing and several of the rod bearings were damaged by solid
objects. Significant new scratches were found. My mechanic's first
words were like "it might have not been you but whoever installed your
oil filter may had allowed whatever dirt to get into the filter"

If the dirt is in the pan, the oil pump gets screwed, but the dirts
get traped in the oil filter and should never reach the crank and bearing
so the only way to get dirt onto the bearings is to have dirt inside 
the filter to begin with.

The fact is that the dirt reached cranck, destroy8ing bearings, and
eventually find their way down and got sucked in by oil pump,
destroyed the oil pump in process as well.... aaarrrggghhh

Verdict:

The almost perfect engine with consistant compression in all cylinders,
had been good performer on the track, is now severely damaged and needs major
rework, all thanks to the stupid blue Purolator oil filter which
I picked up for it's anti-drain valve, from one of those cheap-mart..
forgot which one though... gggrrrr...

(Nizam watch out those blue filters! check to make sure it's clean
 inside before you put it in your 164LS)


So... be careful, the disaster is out there...

And... what filter do you guys recommend? high quality with anti-drain valve?
(Fram is obviously ruled out due to lack of anti-drain valve)

Jess <--- trying to think optimistically that he'll have a "new" engine...
          but can't help to feel sad that another great weekend
          at WillowSpring will be missed :( :( d*mn...

------------------------------

End of alfa-digest V7 #1277
***************************