Oil Fiilters on HJ and Allstate

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

As KFOCI members know, Barbara & I got a 1952 Henry J Corsair Deluxe at the end of June 2017.  I'm taking time over the "off season" to give the car an annual inspection and ponder the question of adding an oil filter (the factory type for a HJ 6) to the car.  I'm sticking to the oil change schedule in the HJ Shop manual and the owner manual (1,000-2,000 miles) which was establlished by Willys-Overland based on having no filter.

Having never owned a Henry J before, I have to admit there is a lot I don't know about the car.  My question is wether or not I should put an oil filter on it.  What do owners of the car types have to say if they have a filter unit or don't have a filter unit?

[Corsairdeluxe]

THAT"S DAMSGUY"S J!! Do not waste your time on it... Sell it to me,I'll take it off your hand's. Remember this offer when you first try to add brake fluid.

The oil filter on a Henry J is next to useless and potentially dangerous. It robs the oil gallery of oil that could be better used somewhere else.I take them off my J's.

[njpatera]

Curious...How does the wash filter starve an area of oil? When changing oil, wouldn't you simply fill the canister also to assure the system is truly full?  Done on our tractors forever...I'm just trying to see this side of the debate better:-)

[Corsairdeluxe]

The output of the oil pump goes to the gallery. With no filter all the output goes to the engine. When the filter is added,it taps the gallery. Now part goes to the engine and part to the filter.The engine parts nearest the tap,arguably,receive less pressure and flow.
Why take the chance?

[njpatera]

follow up:but if the system is full(included extra to compensate the lines), is anything truly lost or missing to starve? It would now be a full system not allowing anything to starve...At least that has been my understanding...I could see starving if oil levels were low. Appreciate the banter by the way:-)

[Fid]

As someone who's owned, maintained and driven Henry Js for over 40 years, I would never put an oil filter on one.  They are bypass type filters (as Corsair Deluxe describes), very inefficient and introduce more points for leaking and failure.  Also makes changing the oil a pain as you have locate and install an expensive cartridge and try to get it to seal after doing so.  When we acquired Edgar Kaiser's Henry J, it had a Purolator filter on it and it leaked like a sieve.  In order to maintain authenticity on the car we just disconnected the lines and blocked them but left the oil filter assembly in place.  No problems.  Change the oil every 1,000 miles and you'll never have a problem.  We rebuilt the engine in my blue '53 J back in 1971. I've put 30,000 miles on it since and always change the oil every 1,000 miles or sooner.  After 46 years, the car does not smoke, uses no oil and has never had any engine work done on it.  I put a rebuilt engine (161 six) in my '52 Vagabond back in '01.  No filter, no smoking and no oil consumption after 16 years and 20,000 miles.

[njpatera]

That's very helpful Fid!...So from a maintenance stand point, more negatives than positives...but mechanically, I guess I was trying to get to...Do they cause damage to an engine by starving an area? (I'm new to the 161)...Whereas my Y-blocks, The heads always have oiling issues, but they also use a canister or spin on, both to the block.

[MarkH]

All the "nay" votes are valid. The oil pump will only deliver a certain number of gallons per minute, and pressure, depending on pump & engine bearing wear. The potential "starvation" issue comes from dividing the pump output between bearings & filter, especially in an engine with some wear.

Nice looking car!

[Fid]

Do they cause damage to an engine by starving an area?

I've never done a study but in theory that makes sense as the oil filter on the 161 (and 226 and 134) is not part of the oil circulation path as it is on modern engines.
It just provides a side path in parallel that goes through the filter meaning, yes oil that is going into the filter path is oil that is not going to the bearings.
Due to this, it is likely that most of the oil doesn't even get filtered, only that which happens to get sloshed over into the filter.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Just to advise, the K-F oil filter that I have for the car (as well as those I noted on cars at this year's National Convention in Prescott) use the P-70FF type filter cartridge.  I probably have enough of those on hand (because they were used in Kaisers and I built up a bank of them for the cars I had over the years) for the car to outlast me.

Since nobody (especially including FID who's one of the club's more knowledgeable people on HJ's) responding feels that it will be helpful, as long as I stick to the oil change schedule, I should skip the thing.

[Fid]

BTW, I didn't mention - your car looks very nice Jack!   Yes, it is Doug E's former car and a very well preserved '52 Corsair Deluxe.  Very nice original McConnell plaid upholstery.  It should be fun!

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

BTW  It is fun!  I drove it back home over the Casades on HY 12 rather than the interstate because of construction, accidents and other traffic problems.  Got 26 mpg and it went up & down hills just fine.  Barbara likes riding in it and has driven it.  We brought in at least 2 new club members as a result of them finding out 1)there is a club that acts as a support net, 2)that you can get parts for them at prices that are affordable and 3)cars themselves are not as overpriced as people thing (because you don't see them at general local car shows, many people believe that owners lock them up as museum pieces).

I want to keep it as proginal as I can over the years.

[DTort96646]

Hello folks, I've been reading this thread about oil filters for a bit and I have to add my observations. Both the 161 and 226 engines used in Kaiser and Frazer cars have oil pumps that feed the crankshaft main and rod bearings first, then the flow is to the camshaft bearings and tappet galley. The 161 has the oil pressure relief valve in the oil pump and the 226 has the oil pressure relief valve in the block main lower oil galley. The oil filters are fed after the oil is fed to the mains, rods, camshaft bearings, and tappets. The oil filter element provides enough restriction not to drop the oil pressure in the engine. In other words whether or not you have a factory approved oil filter will not, cannot starve the main, rod or camshaft bearings of oil, because these areas are fed first. There would have to be no element in the filter housing to even begin to lower the oil pressure because all the oil flow and consequently oil pressure does not go into the oil filter. The bypass  oil filter feed  galley is after the tappet galley. I myself would rather have a partial flow oil filter than no oil filter. If you have an engine with a bypass oil filter that has low or no oil pressure, you probably have worn main, rod or camshaft bearings. The cause is probably from improper maintenance, abuse, wrong oil, or just plain worn out parts.

[njpatera]

Now that is a great explanation! I was looking at some engine diagrams the other day and was mulling this over. I had a hard time digesting a starvation issue. Even looked at some old PurOlator and Fram sites to read up on their systems and materials back in the day and general engineering.  I came away with the acceptance that these early designs were...as mentioned...inefficient, but I too will take the filter knowing its only going to wash about 10% of the volume at a time. Then there is the argument of detergent and non-detergent oil in the filterless motors:-)

[DTort96646]

The engine oils used back in the 50's were not what is made today. High detergent motor oils were available in the 50's and were designated as premium motor oil. The norm was to use regular non detergent motor oil of single viscosity. These oils did not clean well and with the relatively cool running engines of the day (170 to 180 degrees), that black wax looking crud would build up inside the engines. The recommendation was not to switch to premium oil if you had been using non detergent oil, because the detergents would loosen that wax like junk and it would collect in the oil pan and then plug the oil pickup screen. The end result would be oil starvation and a damaged engine. If your engine is relatively clean inside, a good high detergent oil would be okay. I also like multi viscosity oil like 10W-30. Again only if your engine is clean inside. If the engine has some miles on it or has never been rebuilt with moly rings, stay with non detergent straight viscosity oil. 30W for example. This is from my experience over 50 years of auto repair.