Improve Your Oil filtration!

[dawpooldad]

Improve the efficiency of your filter by attaching a small powerful magnet to the outside steel skin of the spin off filter( only works with steel!!!)

Any small, even microscopic, metal particles that can pass through the paper element, will be attracted to the powerful magnetic field and stay trapped in the filter. When you change the filter you can move the magnet onto the new filter. Simples!!

Where do you get your small powerful magnet?

Carefully dismantle a redundant hard drive from a computer and you will find them operating the head arm. Carefully remove them and there you are!

Take necessary precautions as they are very strong and can cause problems with heart pacemakers, computers, mobile phones, electronics, TVs, credit cards and the like! Don't give them to children to play with! Also, be careful placing two together as you can trap fingers!

With all that said and done, I used these magnets to great effect after the rebuild of my Series II. I cut open the old filter after the run in oil change and found a small mound of metallic mush on the opposite side of the magnet! Not the kind of metalic grinding paste you want running around your engine after a rebuild or at anytime for that matter!
Certain types of magnets (Neodymium for instance) degrade at very high temperatures, but they still cling and do their job.
Suitable magnets are also available on Ebay.

I have also used this method on our two Euroboxes and have had curious comments from the servicing garage as to the modified filters!

[ssnjimb]

does the magnet stay on the filter even at high speeds with air blowing over it.

If it does i will try it.

James

[alanworland]

I have heard of this before, but it sounds a good idea - you would think most of the debris would be from non ferrous bits like main/big ends pistons etc but I suppose magnetic bits come from timing chain, distributor gears, piston rings.
Many years ago I adapted my gearbox drain plug to incorporate a magnet (not as strong as yours) but it still picks up bits (not teeth!)

[bmcecosse]

Amazing no-one has ever thought of this before!

[RogerRust]

I think you can buy magnetic sleeves to go round oil filters, I've seen one but I don't know where it came from.

[rayofleamington]

I think you can buy magnetic sleeves to go round oil filters,

yes...

Or use a magnet from a scrap electric motor.

I just changed the oil on a brand new Eurobox gearbox on my test rig - very metallic!! The plug magnet was recessed 3mm in the plug -and I had to dig the metallic sludge ut of it.

[catswhisker]

Another good source of permanent magnets is from the magnetron out of a defunct microwave oven. As has already been said, care must be taken ,
( 'elf and safety ) and also on a MWO,the large capacitor should be dis-charged by shorting across with a large screwdriver. Take care, these
magnets are very strong.

[martinf]

they do work,some manafactures used to fit them both to engines and gearboxes,not anymore!! ive used one for years on the filter housing of my zephyr( i restored her a few years back) and they work fine even on the steel type filter housings for paper elements.

[alzax3]

Hard drive magnets are the best - there are also pretty good ones inside the motors of cordless drills (or anything else with that sort of motor) if you've wrecked the drill in some way you might as well recover something out of it!

[fsk658]

I use the strip magnet found inside the door seal on fridge doors (scrap ones plenty at the tip) I cut them and put a few strips on the filter. I am not sure if they would be as effective on the standard Moggy filter housing Mine is the modified screw on type canister.

[stevey]

sounds like good idea, anything to aid in keeping the gunge rattling around the engine. I suppose it would work well with the gear box if you put one at the drain plug. Is the filler plug a bit magnetic anyway?

[MarkyB]

I think that fridge door seal magnets are a bit weedy for this application.
The rare earth magnets in hard drives etc are remarkable strong.
If they were used on a fridge door you'd never get it open

[dp]

My gearbox drain plug (Fiat) has a magnet and it's shocking how much splintery metal crud has collected each time I change the oil.

As for magnets on the side of the filter, a cable tie should keep them on.

[mike.perry]

The magnetic drain plugs on the old Minis looked like hedgehogs when the oil was drained.

[RogerRust]

does the magnet stay on the filter even at high speeds with air blowing over it.

If it does i will try it.

James

High speed?

[alzax3]

I think you'd find these rare earth magnets would hold to the side of a jet plane in flight (if it was steel) some of them just about need a screwdriver to prise them off......

[autolycus]

I drained the oil of an R-reg Princess 6-cylinder when it was a couple of years old and found an undamaged 1/4UNF set screw stuck to the drain plug magnet. The Austin drawing office went through all their parts lists, and couldn't find anywhere in the engine it could have belonged to. The car ran just as well without it.

Very under-rated cars, that left you feeling (as did the Maxi) that they'd so nearly got it right that if they'd been able to afford to keep a couple of engineers on development work they'd have had some real crackers. And if they'd sacked Blind Pugh from the colour-specifier's job.

Kevin

[ferret76]

I had a Ford F100 Ambulance and I put some ex-hard drive magnets on the outside of the spin on oil filter and one near the drain plug on the transmission pan. Worked very well and picked up quite a bit of crud. There is a company called FilterMag or MagFilter or something that will sell you the magnetic sleeves to fit over your filter. The old magnets out of a hard drive are by far the cheaper option and seem to work just as well. I had nothing holding the magnets on except for themselves and they never moved, in fact it took a bit of doing to get them off when I changed filter. The one on the transmission pan became a permanent fixture. Be very careful handling the magnets though. I once had one in my hand and then tried to pick up another one with the same hand which resulted in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger being trapped between the two magnets.