Has Anyone Ever Tried Wrapping A Strong Magnet Around Oil Filter?

[Guest shiftyshuffle]

I saw on the internet once that wrapping a sheet of magnetic metal or securing several magnets to your oil filter will attract metal shavings and keep them in the filter, rather than passing them through back into the engine. The guy who wrote the article did this, and come the oil-change opened up the filter and saw tiny fragments of metal; generated through normal use, collected around where the magnets were on the outside. He mentioned not to dislodge the magnets once they had been on a while, as all the particles would be dumped back into the engine at once perhaps causing a blockage. Has anyone tried this?

 

Also saw on the same site, you can get optimum oil pressure before start-up by using (I think) some form of compressed gas which attatches to your engine. This allows much quicker oil contact with moving parts when the oil is sitting in the sump, thus increasing the life of the engine and reducing wear from cold starts. Anyone else heard of this?

 

I might try the magnet method

[AndyJ 1]

I dunno about you but my sump plug has a magnet on the end of it for just this purpose, i dont know if they all do tho. I imagine it'd only be of benefit sticking magnets to the filter if the filter was already blocked up and opening the bypass valve? surely the filter element would otherwise be catching the debris?

[Guest shiftyshuffle]

Yeah my plug also has a magnet, I think this guy meant it increases the effectiveness of the filter itself, the magnets have to be very strong. He said he could see thousands of tiny fragments within the filter, moreso around the magnet area when he pulled it apart. I'll try and find the site.

 

Rob

[AndyJ 1]

Theres a discussion of it here: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=880 ... doesnt seem to have reached any consensus tho, guess its just a case of try it and see...

 

I think im just born skeptical if theyre worthwhile why isnt everybody making them like this already?

[Goliath 94]

I was under the impression the whole point of the oil filter was to filter out any parts that were big enough to cause any damage? If you were going to run a magnet I would run it on the sump rather then the filter as you would most likely dislodge all the collected particles when removing the filter.

[Guest shiftyshuffle]

I remember now, the site is www.carbibles.com under the oil section. I found the site through this forum

[timb1046 1]

a few motorbikes use this i remember my mates dad explaining it to me a few years ago. just whack a magnet on the sump, only problem is you have to remove the sump to get the bits out afterwards making the oil change take that little bit longer. i just let the filter do its job much easyer

[petert 550]

I have a magnetic sump plug. Can't recall where I got it from though. There's always a fine debris on it when the oil is changed. It will only collect debris that passes by it though. The magnets that wrap around the oil filter will catch more. The product is FilterMag.

[Ryan 99]

If the metal particles are getting to the filter then surely the filter will trap them anyway (that's it's job) whether you have a magnet or not?

[cir287 0]

ye filter will do this job without magnet, magnet just concentrates all ferous metal particals to one area. If you cut open a filter and run through it with a magnet I'm sure you'd pick up just as much metal.

[Craigo 0]

motorsports developments in blackpool are starting to stock sump plugs with a magnet on the end if people are struggling sourcing them! they have a website...

[KRISKARRERA 2 1 Cars]

Halfords do the magnetic sump plugs. And I had one where it came unglued!

[MerlinGTI 3]

How does the valve in 205 filters work? Will these filter mags mess with them? What diamenter are OE 205 filters? What is the size and pitch of a 205 GTI sump plug?

 

Some links:

 

Cheesy filtermag promo vid:

 

Filtermag UK website: http://www.filtermag.co.uk/

 

Filtermag UK stockist: http://www.agriemach.com/default.php?cPath=46