what is supposed to be in the vapor canister that resides in the air cleaner. I opened mine up to clean it and discoverd nothing. Should there be some type of material of some sort. any thoughts would be appreciated.

thanks Peter
1984 300d 263k miles

its an oil seperator. no theres not supposed to be but i have often thought about adding some steel wool to help catch oil and send it down the drain

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

I wonder what I could put in mine, so it could end up getting sucked inside my engine.......

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

LOL, that's just about what I was thinking. BTW, I did seal up the leaks (post #22):

OM617a owners, how long are you going between air filter changes?

ever see a breather system with steel wool material in it?

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

Matter of fact my Ford diesel tractor, circa 1968, has an oil breather system with a steel material for filtration. It is designed for that.
Why do you ask??????

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Any system that I have seen with "steel wool" used it at the valve cover end to trap some of the oil. I would think adding steel wool to the cyclonic separator would tend to trap more oil in the wrong place in the system.

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

the idea is to catch air born oil and let it strain down to the drain. hopfully cutting down on the oil that soaks your air filter and gets burnt.

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

The theory sounds reasonable, but the two places I really wouldn't want loose little pieces of steel wool are in the inlet manifold and in the oil pan. Putting steel wool in the separator would create the possibility of them getting into both those places. IMHO, it's too much risk for the potential benefit.

maybe come up with a screen to cover both holes?

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

Possible, I guess, but it would have to be a very fine screen to keep little pieces of steel wool from escaping. Maybe it would work better with something other than steel wool? I wouldn't put anything in there unless I was absolutely sure it couldn't get out.

what the material used in lawnmower breathers?

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have no worries.....President Obama swears "If you like your gun, you can keep it

I'm not sure, but from what I recall it's a lot heavier gage "wire" than steel wool.

To tell you the truth, I think the original system works pretty well and I'm not inclined to "improve" it. Sealing the seams in the separator keeps the oil off the air filter element, and burning some oil vapor really isn't a problem. If the engine blow-by is excessive, it's probably more effective to fix that problem (valve seals, etc.) than trying to change the separator design. Just my opinion.

...and there is water vapor present in crankcase gases. Typical steel wool will rust. As well as being too fine to be trusted as a functional part of any engine.

Stainless steel wool?

Stainless steel screens?

Has anyone made a functional oil seperator for these engines?

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See Link and Pictures:

http://www.angelfire.com/space/neon/catchcan.html

Attached Thumbnails

   

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'84 300SD sold
124.128