Words by Bryan Irons @bryanirons
Despite what some may think, many of the lubricants used in your vehicle perform important functions other than just “keeping things slippery.” Engine oil has to be one of the most abused fluids in your vehicle short of the half-sack of Bud Light rolling around in the bed.
Not only does engine oil have to maintain a thin layer of itself between machine and bearing surfaces, but it’s used to cool engine components – and has to deal with all the contaminants, burnt and unburnt, which managed to make their way past piston rings or through breathers. Oil formulations change every year as government bodies around the world take action to protect the environment. DISCLAIMER* Put your pitchforks down, we’re not on a crusade here. We’re just telling you where the rule changes come from. What you thought was in your oils a few years ago, is probably a completely different formulation today. So what’s a wheeler to do? Glad you asked.
For those with an OEM vehicle, your vehicle manufacturer will have a recommended fluid type for your engine, which in most cases should be followed to ensure the best fuel economy and longevity of your engine. There are variants, but we’re not going to tell you what to run in your rig. For those with a custom-built engine, it’s best to talk to your engine builder or a lubrication professional for an oil that will provide optimal protection for your particular build, and there are many very good experts out there. More on that later.
While formulations and technologies have come a long way and can now provide additives that are said to last many more kilometers than what was typically deemed “normal”, we still have a hard time giving up on our methodology of regular oil changes. While we do believe that the latest long-haul formulations can stand up to long term abuse, it’s the contaminants and filtering that are the weak points with OEM setups. But there are items and services in the market that can help.
We ordered a few products from the likes of Lucas Oils, Baxter Performance, Pareto Point Industries and Blackstone Laboratories to help with our oil churning CJ-7. We picked the CJ and its Jekyll/Hyde 401 AMC to be the guinea pig for a few reasons. Not only is it a high compression, loose tolerance engine built for extreme torque and full throttle trail assaults, but it also contains some advance bearing material and piston coating that we very much want to keep in tact. This engine is brutal on oil formulations, and we want it to last.
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Baxter Performance Billet aluminum and anodized setup is nothing short of spectacular. They are typically known for their oil filter adapter for Toyota based products, but we strapped a remote filter to our AMC.
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Our AMC 401 oiling system consists of a #534 tri-flow oil adapter plate from Bulltear that needed to be plumbed to the Baxter unit. Earls -10 AN fitting and hose was used ensuring a leak free future. Make sure to use the proper AN wrench as well.
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The TopDogV setup comes complete with fittings, hose, seals, adapters and a very nice oil filter mount. We do wish that the mount for the Donaldson filter was like the Inverted Baxter design for clean changes; we only plan on changing this filter every two oil changes.
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Step one is to locate where you are going to place all these filters. We have tight engine compartment to begin with and we like to keep the oil lines as short as possible.
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Following the included instructions from Pareto Point, we mocked up the bypass filter before bolting it in the Jeep
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We like to give O-ring fittings a quick shot of lube so we don’t cut them. The more we use this Lucas Penetrating oil, the more we like it. We grabbed a can from our local parts store when it was on sale and may go back for more.
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This adapter directs a small and calculated amount of engine oil towards the 5 micron bypass filter and seals the bypass plate to the Baxter remote filter mount. We struggled a bit with getting it seated properly and torqued down. Make sure to inspect all your components for machining burrs and any debris. Now is not a time for dirty oil!
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As you can barely see, it’s now time to install filters. If you can prefill your filters before putting them on, do so. We have the ability to prime our engine before starting it, so we do that.
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We got in the habit of marking dates on our oil filters as mileage doesn’t mean much to an off-road rig. Time and hours do, and we don’t run an hour meter.
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We use the Lucas High Zinc oil because of the aggressive flat tappet camshaft in our engine. Make sure to consult a professional before purchasing a specialty oil as they can have adverse effects on other components in your engine. Lucas has been excellent in directing us to the best oil for our particular breed of unicorn.
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We scooped this oil filter opener from Summit Racing a few years ago and it has become a staple in our shop for opening and inspecting oil filters after oil changes. It’s not a replacement for a true oil analysis like Blackstone’s, but it beats praying to the engine gods for “one more run.”
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If there’s any question about the immediate condition of your engine, this is the best way to inspect for damage. Go through the pleats of the filter for any metal, carbon deposits or other foreign matter. We opened one up to find parts of a shop rag in it. YIKES!
Our first call was to Duane LaFleur at Lucas Oil to see what we should be running for engine oil. With the flat tappet cam and engine tolerance’s we had for the oil to live in, their “Hot Rod and Classic” high zinc 10W40 formulation was at the top of the list. Truth be told, we had been running this oil for some time with great results.
With the oil selected, we needed a filtering system. Baxter Performance was born from the hatred of cartridge style oil filters and their tendency to leak on newer Toyota vehicles. Baxter makes a number of conversion-style adapters that allow us to ditch the cumbersome and leak prone factory setup and replace it with an easy to find canister style. On top of that, Baxter also makes (in our opinion) one of the nicest remote oil filter housing we have seen to date. The billet aluminum universal mount is designed to allow for easy, mess-free oil changes and a simple installation process. The parts-store double filter mount we were running did nothing to keep the engine bay neat and tidy, and made oil changes a royal pain.
With the Baxter remote filter on, we could select almost any canister style oil filter we wanted, provided it had ¾/16 threads. This is great except most over-the-counter engine oil filters can only clear out products down to the 25- or 30-micron size. You can get units that will clear out debris to a much smaller size, but they quickly clog up and begin to bypass. Think of it as using a Hepa filter to clear gravel out of the air; it will work, just not for long. Pareto Point Industries has an auxiliary oil filtration system that takes care of this headache.
The TopDogV system from Pareto Point Industries sandwiches an aluminum plate between your existing oil filter and engine block (or remote mount filter in our case) and passes a small amount of engine oil to a secondary hydraulic filter with a capacity to trap particulates down to 5 microns. This allows your existing oil filter setup to do the bulk of the filtering, and the bypass system is left to clean out the minuscule particulates that typically cause 90 percent of the damage and wear found in internal combustion engines. The Donaldson P564967 filter that came with our unit typically sells for around $40 compared to the $15 normal oil filter, but it also doesn’t need to be changed at every oil change. Consider the savings as a long-term investment for keeping engine wear to a minimum, and economy as high as possible.
With all the components attached here, and the proper viscosity and additive oil package present, how can you tell if your engine is benefiting from the investment? Oil analysis is the best way. We found Blackstone Laboratories has a great kit for the consumer. At every oil change, take a sample using Blackstone’s free kit. Yeah, it’s free to get the kit and decide, but costs about $40 CAD to get your oil analyzed at their lab. With multiple changes, they can also track the health of your engine. For us, we’re looking to see if we should be changing our oil at different intervals, seeing if there is any material floating around in our oil that shouldn’t be there, and if we should be looking at changing the formulation of oil, and what we can expect in the future for our temperamental motor.
It may seem like dollar bills floating around with roughly $600 in hardware for the oiling system in an “old Jeep”, and we’re by no means rich. We would be hard pressed to go to this extent for a bone stock vehicle that sees light duty highway miles, gets regular oil changes and is still under a factory-warranty umbrella. Consider, though, that a few unknowingly overdue oil changes could easily wipe out a camshaft and bearings costing thousands of dollars in machine shop work, cleaning, parts and downtime from being on the trails. For us, lube systems before lightbars is always a good investment.
Buy yours - www.4wdsupply.us
Lucas Oil - https://www.lucasoil.ca/
Blackstone Laboratories - https://www.blackstone-labs.com/
Pareto Point Industries - http://www.paretopoint.com/
Donaldson Filters - https://www.donaldson.com/
Baxter Performance - https://www.bpadapters.com/
Bulltear - https://www.bulltear.com/
Earls Performance Plumbing - https://www.holley.com/brands/earls/
Summit Racing - https://www.summitracing.com/