Doug,

The MB Diesel oil filters consists of a full flow and bypass section. The full flow section filters all the oil going thru the engine. The bypass section filters part of the oil with a finer filter medium to filter out the tiny particles of carbon black that gets in the oil from burning Diesel fuel. The oil that goes thru the bypass section goes back to the oil sump, not into the oil passages in the engine.

Older MB engines had only a plastic disc with plastic mesh for the full flow part of the filter. They had a separate insert for the bypass filter.

The MB gasoline engines do not have this double filter, just a single full flow filter.

P E H