Blowing out air cleaners-BIG NONO

[luvrbus]

Tom,I am sure Cat,Deere,Bomag and Ingersoll knew what pre cleaner to use for the engines and if you never worked with lime and fly ash you have no idea what a mess it is even with water and the desert sand is a pain and rough on air cleaners.
My service guys followed the manufactures guide and blew the air cleaners like  the manuals stated from the clean air side out worked for me but maybe not for all here. 

Most mining outfits also wash their filters the off road filters don't have a chemical coating like the highway filters and can be washed several time's


good luck

[RickB]

I reluctantly wade into this knowing this is a hot button topic and Tom I hope you knew it when you started the thread.

Here's my experience with the using air to blow out air filters:

First of all, I thinkit's a good thing to invest in a airflow filter minder to see any restriction you may or may not have before air enters the engine.

I have to admit this was a budget issue for me and that is the main reason why I blew out my air filter a number of times before making the decision through Tom's advice that if I don't feel like spending $60 every spring on a new filter maybe I can't afford to own a bus. If it does prevent any issues that $60 dollars I spent on a new filter wouldn't buy me a set of main bearings not to mention the other repair bills I would incur.

But here is where my argument strays a bit and I have to stress this is hands-on experience:

The big difference that in my opinion trumps all the other "possible scenario" arguments is. There is NOTHING I have ever done to my current drivetrain that gave me such a difference in horsepower. I had just blown out my air filter for the 4th or 5th time and I read Tom's comments last time this was being discussed and being that I was in the middle of an entire cooling system rebuild I spent the money and WOW! the change was unbelievable. There few things that you can inexpensively do to an 8V71 that will make real noticeable differences at the rear wheels. But this is one of them. So, although it may be for different reasons, I agree with Tom C on this one. If I can't afford a new filter each spring I can't imagine how I can move my bus out of the driveway with the cost of fuel.

I think performance gets overlooked in these kind of arguments.

RB

[luvrbus]

Rick, I am not saying you can blow a filter forever if you read my post you will see after blowing the filter some I changed every 100 hrs.
How many of you guys read the filter specs for filtration on a air cleaner before just buying one, Cat,Deere, and DD all have one and 1/2 the aftermarket filters you buy at places don't even come close.
Tom made the statement you can not blow a filter with air and all I want is for him to post something from Donaldson showing not blow their good filters with air.
I done for 27 years with no problem up to 2002.
I don't understand why you would change a air every spring and not according to mileage   


Good luck

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Well Tom, for the last 5 seasons i have been running an off road Volvo haul truck on different jobsites. We have water trucks that wet down the roads and the area being excavated and even with all of that there are times when it is so dusty that you can't see the front end of the hood for a few seconds. There have been times i could not even see the windshield wiper......total, zero visability!!!  I have been amazed at how long our air filters can run in that type of environment with out being cleaned or replaced. These rigs get serviced on a regular basis. A highway vehicle will never see conditions like this unless you get caught in a major dust/sand storm. The only way they could have a better location for the air filter is to put it inside the cab.  i have been running equipment for 30 years and every company that i have ever worked for blows out their filters if needed. If they get too bad they replace them sooner than the service interval calls for. I have never seen or heard of a engine gone bad because of this practice.....blown turbo or loss of water or low oil, yes. but never from dust...........except for one, and that happens to be my 8v71. The PO was putting jakes on it and had to cut into the air box to be able to get the taller valve cover on. ( its a 5A, not a lot of room in the engine compartment.)  Before he patched the hole he had driven the bus thru a construction zone with a lot of really fine dust that got sucked in behind the filters and straight into the engine.  Cost him a rebuild. Bad for him but good for me as i got the bus with only 13000 miles on the engine. I will shake/tap/ or lightly blow out my filters one time if needed if i go thru a bad area but i always replace my filters during my yearly service anyway so that very rarely happens. I still think this would be  good topic for mythbusters to examine,.......scientific testing instead of personal opinions. i think i will send them an email and see if they are interested.

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Rick and Clifford posted while i was writing...... Rick i agree about performance of a new filter. That is why i will only blow it out once at the most.......4-5 times a year? where are you driving?  I have 4 filters so it costs me a little more than $60   when i do my yearly change, but i still think it is worth it.

[Busted Knuckle]

I have to agree on this that in actual heavy duty off road construction equipment used in dirty dusty environments (think out side of city limits!) it is quite common to blow out the air filters at least once a day & replace regularly.
Back when I was trucking I religiously did full service PM's on my trucks every 15,000 miles and I either did a mid-service greasing & check on every thing every 7-8,000 miles (or I had the driver get it done where ever he was @ the time) One of the things I did regularly (every full service that I did!, not done on the road) was blow out the air filter 4-5 times each before replacing them. (I marked the date/mileage installed & each time blown out on the filter with a marker)
When the filters would not blow out "clean" I stuck a new one in (60-75,000 miles).
Now keep in mind these were over the road trucks and we were averaging 7-8,000 miles a week on them. We never went "off-rod" but there were many dusty or dirt parking lots around many of the produce houses we hauled out of.
Never once did I experience any problems related to this.

But in considering my drivers and I put more miles on in a week to a month than many converted coaches put on in a year. I would certainly replace the filter at least once a year regardless of $35 or $200. JMHO FWIW.

Remember buses are not trucks, and trucks are not construction equipment, but they all use the same engines and see different uses so YMMV!
 BK  

edit; (Ed cheated and posted twice  on this while I was typing and answering phones! }

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Bk, i don't type fast but nobody calls me either.

[Busted Knuckle]

Ed,
I don't type fast either, but people think that because we are a business that we should answer phones anytime after 8 AM !
  BK 

the ones I really love are the 3-4 AM calls (all calls below actual quotes & true 3-4 AM and we don't even have a Greyhound stop in Union City anymore. And if we did why would I now there prices and schedule!)
"ah, yeah hello, uh how much is a round trip ticket to Dallas?"
"Hi can you tell me what time the bus that left from Chicago @ 2 O'clock in the afternoon will be thru here? Ma sister is on that bus an I need to know what time she be here!"
"Is it too late to get a ticket for the 3:00 AM bus to Nashville?" @ 3:15 AM

[Just Dallas]

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[Just Dallas]

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[Just Dallas]

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[luvrbus]

Thank you kind Sir, that is about the same as all equipment manufactures have in their manuals, you just enjoyed watching me swim in shark infested waters LOL have a good day Dallas  


good luck

[Ed Hackenbruch]

Well i went to the Mythbusters site and registered and tried to find out how to post an idea for the show and followed their directions , but all i got connected to was for Dirty Jobs and i think my idea would have just been buried somewhere and would never have been seen. Maybe somebody that is more computer savvy than me can try it and have better luck. You would think that since they are asking on the show for ideas that they would make it real simple to post something.

[TomC]

This straight from Donaldson.  Good Luck, TomC

[RickB]

Clifford and Dallas,

I certainly didn't meant to give the impression that I know anything about 15 hour a day haulers at construction sites. You guys have experience there that I would never argue with. I did, however blow out my old filter numerous times and obviously however careful I was to get all the dirt and obstructions out it still paled in comparison to the hp difference changing my filter on my bus made. Maybe it was a batter designed air filter, maybe it was because I painted the inside of my air cleaner but for whatever reason it worked. I just have nore faith in that than a recommended guideline by a manufacturer who probablty wasn't even thinking about buses when they wrote it because we are such a minority when it comes to industrial and over the road designs and applications.

What does MCI say or Greyhound? Even that matters less to me than the difference I felt when I changed mine earlier this year.

If it's a waste of money so be it. If I was concerned about wasting $60 I should have never bought a bus. Heck, it costs me $100 before my bus reaches the doorway of most places.

As a guitar player the string manufacturers recommend changing strings weekly. I have a friend that can play my guitar for 5 minutes and my strings are toast. If I am careful and don't play my guitar with oil or grease on my hands I can go a couple months without any noticeable change. The change from a worn out set of strings and a new set is remarkable. That's the kind of horsepower change I got when I changed my filter. I never felt any change when i blew it out.

I respect you both immensely and I submit to the fact that you have both forgotten more about detroit's than I will probably ever know so please don't misread my interpretations of your advice. I hear both of you clearly and I will still have a new aircleaner in my bus come next spring. That's not disrespect on my part it just that it worked for me.

It really does take all kinds of people to make a world and I am sure there are absolutes that you follow in regards to how you maintain your engines that I either couldn't afford to do or that I haven't personally placed enough importance on.

Every mechanic I know has said to me time and time again that I need to drive my bus harder that i am hurting the motor when I don't but I still struggle to do it.

No harm, no foul...

Rick