Thread: Paper Filters are rubbish.

We used to have a company come in & collect all our paper elememt filters for our trucks & air compressor . They would take them away ,wash them . & Test them before returning them. Saved quite a bit of money by doing this . We had two sets of filters for each vehicle .

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

If you are fair dinkum about air filtration use a SK type system.
They come in all sizes.
They self clean and stop 99% of the rubbish before the main filter.
Sy-Klone International

Sy-Klone International:

I use these these when conditions are likely over load the standard set up quickly.
They are small and cost effective and just leave anything else for dead and you still get to use the standard filter.
They self clean.
They must be sized to the motor in use.
The best part is you pull up and stop the motor and you can hear the thing winding down like a turbine......cool sounding if you like that sort of thing .

Any idea what they're worth mate?

Happy Days.

I sold my business about 5 years ago & retired , I could check with my old forman his brither inlaw owned the filter cleaning business.
Wayne

Interesting thread (as always, on this topic).

Did a search for Sy-Klone on eBay but this is all I got



I'd be interested to see what the real sy-klones cost too.

Some important points to note:

"paper" Filters are not always paper
Some OEM (and aftermarket) filters use polymer (plastic), glass or stainless steel fibres (I am not talking about gauze/mesh here).
e.g. the OEM NK(?) Pajero air filter is polyester (a bit like this one):


What people call paper filters are cellulose fibre. Most cellulose fibre media is 70+ % eucalypt - but Australia doesn't earn a cent from it...

Cleaning filters
I would NEVER clean a cellulose air filter. The potential for damage to the engine if the filter is pinholed during cleaning is too high.

Polymer or stainless steel media could be cleaned, however.

Air filters should be left in place as long as possible (until pressure drop gets too high). Filters are NOT sieves (oil filters do use sieving as one capture mechanism), so if you change your air filter too frequently you are letting more dust into your engine, rather than less.

Pre-cleaners
Pre-cleaners are great. Cyclonic pre cleaners are generally much better than pre-filters. as well as the brand mentioned, donaldson and many other companies make cyclonic pre-cleaners.
Pre-cleaners if correctly sized will remove 70-90% of the mass of dust before it gets to your filter.

If you look at the air cleaners of most trucks these days they will have lots of mini-cyclones in the air intake, such as this one. Cyclones often work better in parallel like this - over a wider range of inlet flows.

I do a lot of dusty miles. What is the concensus on the best prefilter? Where do they mount?

just like a Dyson vacuum cleaner

Originally Posted by JamesB71

I do a lot of dusty miles. What is the concensus on the best prefilter? Where do they mount?

The donaldson top-spin is probably the best retrofit version that does not involve changing your filter box, with the added bonus that it spits the dust out so is 0 maintenance. Most cyclonic pre-cleaners mount on the top of the snorkel.

They will tell you it is designed for "off highway" applications, but that just means dusty environments.

http://www.donaldson.com/en/engine/s...ary/000207.pdf