Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Some points brought up though. I
have a 98, 5.2L, basically stock engine.
You can't see or get to the filter from the top, tried, failed. Unless
there's some mystical way I'm missing.
I've changed 4 filters on this truck. I've never yet been able to break it
loose by hand. I tighten them on by hand but engine vibration, heat expansion
and contraction, all work to make it impossible to loosen by hand. Had a
mechanic change the oil once and heard nothing but 4 letter words out of him
as he tried 3 different wrenches on the filter. That thing cranks itself on
tighter and tighter by god only knows what physics.
I don't have 5-10 minutes to play games with screwing the oil filter off.
I've never, in any car I've owned before, had to 'baby' removing a filter.
After draining the engine of oil, the filter should be self draining as well.
It's obvious it's not on the 318. Not only that, but it "pressurizes" the
filter in such a way that the oil "shoots" out of the filter (not seeps) once
the first "hole" is breached. It's not a gusher, but it's a pretty decent
flow. Due to this phenomenon, I'm not going to punch holes in the filter.
Did this once because I didn't have a wrench and man did that make a mess!
My final solution was to take a rag and wrap it around the base of the
filter after I "loosen" it so I can hand spin it off. The rag catches the oil
that spits out and is right there to wipe off the contact plate after the
filter is draining in the oil catch pan. It's still not a totally clean
solution, but I'm certainly not impressed by the engineering here. I've had 4
bangers, 6 bangers, and none of them had these problems.
As far as filter choices go, if you're changing your oil and filter every
3K, so long as the filter cleans out the large particles, even the cheap
filters will do. My personal choice is the teflon filters since they add a
half mile per gallon to my fuel economy (no lie). I tried regular filters
after using the teflon impregnated ones, and the preformance of the truck
dropped noticeably... I could see it at the fuel pump. When Mobil 1 decides
to add teflon to their filters I might switch, but since I don't go beyond 3K
with my oil, I don't forsee ever having to worry about it.
Shaun H.
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