Stretch's used oil centrifuge

[cranetruck]

Received the oil analysis reports today.
They more or less confirm my suspicions that the chemical content of the oil is not altered much by filtration.
Lead, Iron, Copper and Silicon actually went up, but that may be due to how the samples were taken, while Aluminum was reduced.
Both samples also contain water (1.7 and 0.9%), coolant and fuel. Fuel was 8.9 and 9.8 % by volume, before and after filtration respectively.

For some reason the viscosity was cut in half in the process, from 9.58 to 4.54 CSt (centistokes)....why would the viscosity change that much by filtration?
....Called the lab on this and the tech said that with that much water, the viscosity can't be measured accurately. Fresh oil off-the-shelf will have less than 0.01% water.......

I'm having computer problems and the scanner is not on line at the moment, but as soon as possible, I'll post the results....

 

[cranetruck]

Scanned results....

 

[Stretch44875]

The oil I get comes from a variety of sources, and is all mixed together for filtering. The water content/antifreeze content is not surprising, I've had to drain both from the bottom of some the oil. Fuel in the oil is a good thing for me!

I had noticed the oil seemed thinner after centrifuging, no sure why.

Noticed a lot of things went down also. Most important to me the soot/solids went down.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Looks like water content went down too. Well now we know not to use it as motor oil!

 

[TommyG45]

Thank you to all who contributed to the sampling process. This is very interesting.

Can you comment on the amount of oil you had to send them? How it was packaged?

Thanks

TG

 

[cranetruck]

You are welcome! I have been asking for these samples from several fellows on the list over the years and glad that Stretch took the trouble and sent me the before and after.
Get the oil sample kit from NAPA, about $14.00, which includes everything you'll need. The oil sample amounts to about 1/2 cup or so.

There may be some discrepancies due to the way the sampling was done here. When you take an oil sample from an engine, do it after the oil is warmed up and sample via the port on the oil cooler (multifuel engine) to get the same starting point each time. If the sample is taken from the oil pan, then crud and water may be included that would never run through the engine itself.

A fine filter (5 micron or better) may work better than a centrifuge in this case.
Water in the oil leads to bacteria and sludge build-up. I believe that a fuel additive may be in order in this particular case.

 

[TommyG45]

Thanks Bjorn,

I would like to dump the oil and get a base line of what the duece is doing "oil wise" that is. It would be interesting to know as the report NAPA provides appears very useful.

 

[TommyG45]

The oil I get comes from a variety of sources, and is all mixed together for filtering. The water content/antifreeze content is not surprising, I've had to drain both from the bottom of some the oil. Fuel in the oil is a good thing for me!

I had noticed the oil seemed thinner after centrifuging, no sure why.

Noticed a lot of things went down also. Most important to me the soot/solids went down.

Stretch,

How many times did you send the oil through the centrifuge prior to being profiled ?

TG

 

[Paul5388]

I just registered so I could add a little information you may not be aware of.

ppm is milligrams per liter or .001 g/1000 ml. With a density of .88, one liter of motor oil weighs 880 g. That means 2000 ppm is only 2.0g/880g =.2%. If you add all of the ppm variety contaminants, it's still only about .4%. That's about 3.2 fluid ounces of water in 50 gallons of oil.

I don't know that I'll run WMO in my Mercedes 300D Turbo, but it's a viable option for my 3/4 ton Chevy 6.2, IH 444 and IH 254.

I haven't operated a deuce and a half or 5 ton since 1987, about the same time as I operated a M113 and a M60A3.

BTW, I found this to be a very interesting thread.

 

[CCATLETT1984]

welcome aboard , and thanks for the info.

I dont think i'd run wmo in my cucv, but I will be running it in my deuce.

 

[Stretch44875]

Don't know how many times the oil went through. Filtered oil is dumped in the top of a 55 drum, and siphoned out the bottom to be filtered again. Pump runs at .9 gpm, so one cycle thru should take just over a hour. Usually let it run overnight, about 8 hours.

Thanks for some tech info, always good to hear numbers!

Dennis

 

[Paul5388]

As an update on my progress, I recently purchased some 25 micron filter bags for the "rough" filtering. I'll follow that up with a 1 micron filter bag. Gravity fed, the filter bags are pretty efficient, but will tend to stop up in the lower portions first. So, the next rough filtering will go through a screen to trap the big stuff.

A pump system for transferring the oil, that won't break the bank, is mandatory with the setup I have so far. Harbor Freight has a 4 gpm 12 volt marine pump that may be sufficient, even though it says not to use it on fuels. The pump body is made from stainless steel, which should handle high flash point oil without a problem.

 

[Mark3395]

I saw that little marine pump this weekend, and the electrical lines bothered me because I need to pump mystery stuff from the tank of a long-stationary M211.

They also have a pneumatically driven 12 gpm pump that I'm trying out... and figuring on running it from another deuce or even an air bottle. Should be both fast and safe. Hard telling what it'll suck up.

 

[TommyG45]

Mark,

See if they have a CFM rating on the air pump, the deuce will probably run it, but don't count on the specs they may provide in terms of GPM. Also it would be good to check with the rest of the folks on here as to how long you should keep a deuce running in a stationary manner at an RPM necessary to produce the air volume needed. Depending on the real GPM flow of the pump, and the amount of "stuff" that needs to be pumped, will the deuce be running at high idle for XX minutes, or even an hour. my bet is you won't get much life out of a bottle of compressed air, assuming that is what you meant to do.

I also looked at DC motors, and from what I could tell, the manufactures recommend short duty cycles, unlike an AC motor. AC Motors can be run for hours, while some of the specs on the DC stuff suggested 30 minute run times. It could have been just what I was looking at, but that comes to mind.

I have finally purchased all the parts I needed for my set up. After much research, I ended up going down a route I didn’t think I would go. I ended up with a 2.2 GPM 1/2 HP pump @ 90 PSI. Once I get everything assembled, I will post a complete write up, pics and results. I went the Centrifuge route creating a batch processor (cold method) to clean and dewater the oil.

Tommy

 

[Paul5388]

I'm using the marine pump and don't have a problem with the volumes I'm pumping so far. It's only about 4 gpm, so it isn't the fastest in the world. If the electrical connections are a problem, just run a line to the battery and go through a toggle switch to energize it. That would put any spark at a more remote location.

I also bought the 12 gpm pneumatic pump, but haven't actually used it yet. The air pressure regulator is set at the factory for about 10 psi, but I don't know the cfm of air it will actually need to operate.

An air pump with a separate AC motor can be used through an inverter, or one can also be fabricated from an old Tecumseh A/C compressor and belt drive it off of the engine.

I'm using the filtered WMO/WVO, cut with 50% diesel, in my IH 444 and don't see any problems with its use.

 

[TommyG45]

Here is a quick snapshot of the batch processor (cold method). Still in the process of putting it all together. The motor and pump are still not assembled, but the centrifuge, 5 micron filter/water separator, and filler funnel are assembled. When I get it complete, I will do a full write up on the process, bill of materials, and test results with before and after of the fuel.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Sorry I missed these posts till now! I am using that same small pump. In fact I have two of them. I have noticed that the ones with the six prong rubber impeller does not last as long or work as well as the one with the plastic wheel with 4 paddles on it. You will not know which you have untill you take the 4 screws off the front and check. If you need pics I can post them after this weekend.

 

[bmH1065]

I don't know anything about a cream separateor or how it works, but once I was told by an old man that he had known about a guy that put used motor oil in one and after a while it turnded the used oil into oil that looked like new motor oil. Does anyone know how this would work?

 

[nf6x]

I'm interested in experimenting with this stuff. I have an air-powered barrel pump that I bought a while back and never used, I just got a used barrel from a friend in exchange for buying him lunch, and I bought a nice barrel funnel to make it easy to dump my drain oil into the barrel. My pump is a piston-type that fills up the whole 2" bung, and my funnel is the flat kind that sits on the drum head over the 2" bung, so I won't be able to make a nice integrated dump+pump+filter setup like TommyG45's beautiful system.

At the moment, spin-on filters like ranchhopper used appeal to me more than the water filters that other folks have mentioned using.

Do any of y'all have an idea bout how much used diesel crankcase oil I could expect to filter through a 5 micron spin-on before it needs to be replaced?

Would one pass through the filter(s) be enough, or should I recirculate the oil for a while like the centrifugal guys do?

The centrifugal filters also look interesting, and I think I'll research them some more, but I don't think I'd be using WMO on a large enough scale to justify the expense.

 

[TommyG45]

Nf6x,

Concerning the question about the longivity of the 5 micron filter set up.

Double edge sword. The oil I get ~ 70 gallons to date all came from friends wanting to get rid of the stuff they have had in their garage. Lord only knows what was in it, but I did catch on one occation that a bunch of goop dumped into my funnel before I realized what was going on. I went with a larger funnel so I could just tip the containers upside down and drain out all the oil. With that came the goop.

If you have goop, you will clog your filter right away after a few short gallons. When I did my test run, I dumped oil that came from my own equipment and it was stored in clean containers. While the oil was rather very black, I know for a fact it didn't contain any outside goop.

I mixed my own WMO at a ratio of 75% WMO, 25% unleaded gas, the same ratio I use in my M35. I ran it through the prefilter stage for two hours. So @ 2.2 GPM for 120 minutes I passed roughly 264 gallons through the 5 micron filter/water sep with no issues. The pressure at the inlet was the same as the outlet. I wanted to clean the oil up a bit prior to sending it through the centrifuge, and also wanted to ensure it was well mixed with the gas.

Long story short, keep the goop from getting into the system by filtering prior to the finer 5 micron stage. A very fine mesh screen worked well in my case. Also, my pick up tube is set at 1/4 of an inch above the bottom of the collection drum, so I am sure I get settled goop as well. If you can keep the big stuff out, the filters should go for a good while.

Currently, I have to replace my 5 micron filter, I purchased extra knowing I would at some point do something silly. The PSI readings pre and post show about a 25 pound difference, so I know it needs to go. When the filter is operating cleanly, there is next to no difference in PSI pre and post, pretty smooth flow.

Update on system

By the way, I wasn't sure how the centrifuge would work without heating the oil first. Using the cold method by mixing the oil with gas prior to spinning seems to cut the oil enough to spin out some pretty ugly goo. This is after running it through the 5 micron filter for two hours prior to spinning. I am just playing around with it at this point, trying different mixture ratios, learning alot in the process. I will update some pics this weekend of the completed unit, and of course, post a summary of what I learn.

Cheers

TommyG