rockwithjason

I have wanted a frantz oil filter ever since I first saw them on the fleet vehicles at work. I love simple innovation and the idea of a tp roll as a filter is american ingenuity at it's best. The new kits are available at http://wefilterit.com but being a cheapskate I didn't want to pay retail.
I spent a coulple of days surfing ebay and there she was, with a little creative bidding I had a new in box frantz filter at a $60 discount. Closer examination of the enclosed instructions and documentation revealed a copyright date of 1966. Apparently I had vintage stuff on my hands but that was ok with me. A few days later it was here but I had to wait for the weekend to get the filter on. After doing some honey do's for my main squeez , I was free to play.

Here is the box and it's contents. The kit provides 2 each 90 deg, 45 deg and straight 1/8 npt brass fittings. They don't have hose barbs on them, they have flared ends with threadeds. As I am not a pipe fitter or a tin knocker I don't know the proper terminology. Maybe they are AN fittings I don't know. Anyways the hose is 300 deg oil rated 1/4 hose. There are heavy sheet metal screws to mount the bracket with and some 3/8 hardware to mount the filter base to the bracket.

The filter base has 1/8 npt ports marked in and out on the bottom side. I chose 45 deg fittings for my install and used the standard teflon tape for sealant. The kit had some thread sealer in it but being that it was pretty old I didn't trust it.

After looking around under the hood for a suitable mounting place I decided on the passenger fenderwell just below the battery tray. Drilling here is a real PITA, a right angle drill and short drill bits would have been helpful. I held the bracket up like I wanted it and made a scribe line and then marked my top center mounting hole. I removed the bracket and drilled with a 3/16 bit. Because of the angle the drill walked all over and I missed my mounting hole by a tad, no biggie tho. The mounting hole are in a triangular pattern so they fit nicely on the curved fender well. I put in the bracket and tightened the top mounting screw. I then drilled the other two mounting holes. Again my drill walked all over but I finally got through. I missed my scribed angle by a few degrees but not enough to worry about as the filter can be mounted in any position.

I mounted the filter base and scoped the fit, being satisfied I decided on a hose routing. I would use the 1/8npt plug on the top of the filter housing as the feed.

I would then drill into the valve cover for the return.

There are a number of options for return plumbing but the valve cover was the easiest seeing as I had a 1/8 27 tap left over from my pyro install. I drilled a 27/32 hole in the valve cover using a twist drill with the flutes packed with grease to catch the shavings. The location shown is a few inches back on the passenger side of the engine. I tapped out the hole again packing my tap with grease to catch the cuttings. Using one of the straight brass fittings provided I teflon taped it and tightened it up. Using an open end wrench I removed the 1/8 npt plug from the top of the oil filter housing. I prepped a 90 deg fitting and installed it in the filter housing. This was an exercise in patience requiring several open end wrenches to complete. The next step was to thread in a straight fitting to complete the feed

With my fittings in place I could make up the hoses. The instructions said to run hot water on the hose and then push one end onto the provided fittings (an?). The kit provides crush style clamps that you tighten with a set of dikes, so I was very careful to get both clamps on the hose before I pushed on both fittings. The only way to get the hose off of the fittings is to cut it so measure twice cut once. I measured my feed and return hoses, made them up and installed them. Now I was ready to install the filter can.

The filter can houses a roll of tp held in place by a retaining ring. There is a pull loop to remove expired filters and it seems to work well. I double checked the gasket at the base of the filter plate and set the filter can in place. The clamp band is one heavy duty unit, no way that thing is leaking if you install it correctly. You do have to feel around the base to make sure you are centered in the band. Tightening was a snap with the bolt and thumbwheel design. With everything tight I fired the CTD and checked for leaks, none were found. I killed the engine and stuck the return hose in a coffee can, then fired the engine again. A small controlled stream of oil pumped into the coffee can and I was satisfied. I purposely left dirty oil in the rig to test the claims of the manufacturer. In about 500 miles I will pull the stick and see what we have. Updates to follow!

Thanks to my best girl for letting me use her driveway!

rockwithjason

Opps I forgot the finished install pics, looks good if I do say so myself!

RAFTEN

Why didn't you just pull the valve cover before drilling. Getting a chip in the lube system seems like a big chance to take.

Dr. Evil

yikes, an orange oil filter.... Better get that roll of TP in there...

mikelr

Hey,

I just intalled my Frantz filter this weekend as well, I think the only place to logically mount the thing is there on the fender well. My install was complicated my some plow wiring that happened to be living there on the fender well.
I've got about 200 miles on it so far, pulled the stick today and oil was as clean as a whistle (I did change the oil when I installed it).

Man Dr. Evil is right, you must have been between a rock and a hard place to put that Fram filter on there Get rid of it!

Dr. Evil

amazing that you can use tp to filter hot motor oil??? I just dont get it.....apparantely, its a good product

slowerthanu

I would think the toilet paper would dissolve. It sure rips easy when you don't want it too.

bmoeller

Oil doesn't hurt the paper, as water would. I've been running a Frantz since the middle of last year. I got in on a TDR group buy, so I saved a little bit on it.

upersleder

i did some checking on the site, i think changing the TP and adding a quart every 1500 miles would get kinda spendy. especially those of us using synthetics

mikelr

You only have to change it every 3000 miles and I doubt it would even take a quart to top off.

SHARPMACHINE

I realy like the thought of returning it to the valve cover, but would it not be better to send it lower so that it would drain when the engine was shut off. This way you could wait a day and most of the oil would drain from the filter???


just a thought, what do you folks think???

upersleder

on the site it had recommended change intervals and on the bottom it said diesels derease the time by 25%

Moose10

Does it matter what kind of TP you use?

upersleder

YES it said 2ply 500 sheet 1 ply 1000 sheeet would work also. i guess when this thing was dreamed up they were limited on TP (1950s,) i dont think you would get as good a result with quilted charmin

BoostdCTD

I think Scotts is a favored one since it is simply flat and pretty tightly wound.

Did you have an issue with the pipe being a different diameter than a normal TP roll? I thought that is the reason why the older TP filter assemblys go a lot cheaper since they don't work directly with the new TP.