The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Oil Filter Lines

Looking for sources for pre-made oil filter lines for '59 235. (stock canister) Filling Station has some, but pretty expensive for rubber lines at $75+/pair. If anyone has any experience with them, please let me know if they are worth the price.

Ron

1) I am running a 12” grease gun hose for the outlet side. It seems to have held up fine. Bought some push lock fittings and built my own for the inlet side. I used a swivel fitting I already had from a pre-made set that failed.

(You ~might- be able to use an 18” grease gun Jose on the inlet side. Not sure if it would be long enough. And you’d have to figure out some sort of swivel fitting. )

2) Your FLAPs or hydraulic hose shop can build you some. When I looked into this, it was rather expensive.

3) I intend to eventually replace mine with the pre-flared brake/fuel line. That would likely be your cheapest way to go, and possibly the least likely to fail.

I hope to shout that a grease gun hose would hold up. They're only rated for about 1000 psi.

Your hydraulic shop could fix you up with some push-loc hose and fittings and you could make them any length you want. That hose is rated for at least 100 psi. I just replaced all my fuel line hoses on a 7.3L and it cost me all of $17 for about 6 feet of hose. I already had the fittings and reused them. You'd need 4 fittings and a few feet of hose. Not going to break the bank. JMHO.

If using rigid brake/fuel line be sure to put vibration loops in them. Unless your filter is mounted on the engine. Mine will go on the inner fender above the steering gear.

I'm making all my brake lines, so maybe I'll just go that route.

Kevin, my filter will be mounted to the stock engine manifold location, so should vibrate with the engine, but maybe some loops would still be a good idea.

This ends up being a really cool look if you take some care with the loops and the bends. I’ve seen some nice examples here on the site.

Look for a local hydraulic line replacement place near you that repairs hydraulic lines for heavy equipment, earth movers, trucks, etc)

It will be a lot cheaper than buying pre made lines from the Filling Station.

If you can't drive your truck, take the old hoses for templates.

Was never worried about the pressure of the grease gun hose. The thing that’s always been in the back of my mind is heat. Hard to find any sort of heat rating on them. That, and the fact they are all made from pure Chinesium nowadays.

Looping the brake line would look cool, but I don't understand why it would be necessary. There is no movement between where the filter in bolted to (intake manifold) and where the lines go into the block.

Vibration from the engine can cause metal fatigue. Looping like on refrigerator lines relieves that problem.

I used CuNi tubing when I replaced the rubber hoses on my bypass oil filter. There are enough bends in the tubing that IMHO, a loop is not needed.

Looks sharp!

One suggestion I have is to consider a heat shield or some fiberglass header wrap tape where those lines run close to the exhaust pipe.

One advantage of using hard lines is the ability to bend them away from the exhaust- - - - -no need for insulation.
Jerry

The rubber hoses on Ol' Roy have been on the truck for 75 years and they haven't melted or leaked. I think you guys are overthinking this.

My thought process is the metal lines will conduct heat a little better than rubber can. You don't want to overheat your oil, and the slower flow rate to a bypass filter will make it more likely.

Like I said, the rubber has been on there for 75 years without any problems - overheated oil or otherwise.

Year 76 will be here before you know it. You'd best keep your eye on the oil pressure gauge, being that you just bragged on your rubber 75 year old lines.

Right, but you get where I'm coming from. The rubber lines do the job and don't "overheat" the oil.

The percentage of oil that would even have the potential to get overheated….is quite small relative to the volume of the pan. Bypass system, we are talking about.

Whatever minimal heating happens in the line (in theory) would be immediately diluted when it dumps back in the pan.

Any talk about oil getting overheated (or cooled) in either rubber or metal oil filter lines is just that -- talk.
Heat added or removed from the oil in filter lines is INSIGNIFICANT compared to heat it picks up inside the engine block.
I say that as a Mechanical Engineer who studied heat transfer and designed systems to transfer heat.

Various trucks have come to me with factory oil lines to the bypass filter. They were all old. They all failed while I owned them. At the time they were a common FLAPS item for a few bucks. Eventually I went the hard line route and used copper with vibration loops. And eventually one of them failed on the way to an ATHS truck show. I was able to crimp the line off to stop the leak at a rest area. On the upside the oil dumped on the leaf spring made it ride a bit smoother.

Fast forward a few decades and I'm now using an external, full-flow filter fed by some 1/2" pipe and AN fittings hooked to braided stainless hose. These aren't a perfect solution either as if you buy cheap AN fittings they leak and if you buy cheap braided hose the braid is so thin that any abraision at all eats through the jacket and without that the hose fails and leaks. I have seen these done with all pipe but there are so many 90 deg. turns that there is a noticeable pressure drop across the whole shebang. I know that because I bought a kit that used 3/8 pipe and waited maybe 3 minutes for the oil pressure to go up.That lasted one trip to Arizona. I am rigging up a pressure switch to kill the ignition if the pressure fails. They'll be an override button on the dash to get it started.

There's no need for large diameter lines to the bypass oil filter. There should be an orifice fitting at the supply point from the oil gallery that restricts flow to the filter. You'd only need large diameter lines for a high flow filter which is not what a bypass filter is.
A hydraulic shop could fab up some lines for you that should last for a long time as long as they aren't rubbing against something.
Maybe you need to confirm that your filter supply fitting has the orifice to restrict flow to the filter, which essentially drops the pressure at the hoses and the filter to just above crankcase pressure.