Toilet paper oil filter system

Question: While I was attending the University of Oklahoma in 1960, a study was done by the petroleum engineering department. The question was: Is draining oil from a vehicle necessary? They worked with White Trucking Company and tested their theory on long-haul trucks. Using only a "toilet paper" filter and only adding oil, they ran one set of trucks against ones that received oil and filter changes for 100,000 miles. The results showed no significant wear differences between the two. They also concluded that the oil in the no-change vehicle was "stronger," because the weak molecules in the oil broke down and evaporated. This study was going on at about the time that the Conoco Oil company was working on biofuel and had developed a plant in Bartlesville, Okla. But then both the study and the plant were suddenly gone, and I never heard any more. What is your take on the oil-change theory? Don

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Can I reuse a paper oil filter?
Can oil be filtered with filter paper?
Which paper is used in oil filter?

Tom: Ah, yes. I remember that study, Don. It was funded by Charmin.

Ray: Actually, while we don't know anything about that particular study, I'd take it with a grain of salt.

Tom: First of all, motor oil has improved dramatically in the past 50 years. So whatever was done then probably doesn't apply now.

Ray: Also, long-haul, diesel trucking engines are built to last much longer than automobile engines. So 100,000 miles might not have been enough to show the damage of forgoing oil changes.

Tom: We have heard about the toilet-paper filter, though. It's called a Frantz Filter, and it has had a small cult following throughout the years. As you might expect, you install the housing, and then you simply stick a roll of 1,000-sheet, two-ply, 100-grit toilet paper in the holder, and that does the filtering. When it's dirty, you remove it and insert another roll.

Ray: It's not a surprise to us that it never caught on in big numbers, because it requires men to change a roll of toilet paper.

Tom: Aside from that fatal flaw, we've had good reports about it from our customers during the years. But keep in mind that anyone who would go through the trouble of installing and using one of these things obviously is very interested in car care and maintenance. That kind of person probably tends to take particularly good care of his car in all kinds of other ways, which could skew the results.

Ray: In any case, Don, our personal experience at the garage suggests that changing the oil and filter regularly is good, and not changing the oil and filter regularly can be very bad -- even catastrophic over the long haul.

Tom: And it's relatively cheap insurance. It's $20 or $30 a few times a year, for most people. So we still strongly believe in changing the oil in your car, and changing the toilet-paper roll in the bathroom. And not vice versa.

Q: I heard a caller on your show describe sitting in her car for 20 minutes while it idled so she could run her air conditioner and listen to her stereo. I couldn't have been the only one who cringed at that, could I? She was wasting money and fuel, generating pollution and, from what I've read, damaging her engine. Do you guys agree with this? John

Ray: We've never condoned excessive idling, John. Except in the case of my brother.

Tom: Right. Sitting on a park bench with a cup of coffee during working hours is great, and I highly recommend it.

Ray: But as far as cars are concerned, you're right on three of your four points: It does waste money, it wastes fuel and it creates more pollution. But it doesn't really harm the car.

Tom: Right. With modern, fuel-injected engines and with computerized engine management, the fuel is metered precisely enough that excess fuel isn't pouring into the cylinders, like it was in the old days of carburetors.

Ray: Nonetheless, idling is still wasteful and selfish, and bad for the planet. So we recommend that if you're going to be stopped for more than a few minutes, you turn off your engine.

Tom: There's no harm in turning it off and on again. There's no truth to the myth that you "use more gas starting it than by letting it run." And you can listen to your car radio with the key in the accessory position.

Ray: One of the ways hybrid vehicles save fuel is by automatically turning off the engine whenever you come to a complete stop, even at traffic lights. And my guess is that sooner rather than later, all new vehicles will adopt this "automatic stop-start" technology. It's an easy and relatively inexpensive way to cut our national gasoline use by probably 10 percent, and make intersections smell a lot better.

Tom: But you can contribute today, even if you don't have that technology, just by being conscious of when your car is stopped for a few minutes. When it is, shut off the engine. Future generations -- and the poor guy sitting behind you -- will thank you.

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yup.. you read it right, toilet paper as a filtering medium for your oil. this is in addition to your regular oil filter. they use a regular toilet paper roll and they claim you never have to change your oil again. just pop in a new roll every now and then, and change your regular filter.
so what's the poop on these toilet paper filters?
you gotta be shittin' me!!!... (sorry, couldn't resist)
He aint shittin. When I worked at the parts house in 92 there was an old fart that would come in and get an oil filter and a quart of oil.He would change it once a month in a 68 caddy that had one of these things on it. He claimed that he had never changed the oil since the day he bought it new and had the TP filter installed at the dealership. Except what he put in it when he changed the filter. I always thought he was full of shit but the car was still running in 94 when I quit.
They will filter. They will also plug up every oil passage in your motor when the paper breaks down. Popular in the late '50's, but lots of problems.
When I worked at a Dodge dealer back in 62, we had a guy that would come in with an old Plymouth wagon, pay a buck and a half for a lube job and while you were working on his car he would change the toilet paper filter on his car, make a mess and never tip you. It was a Franz filter and the car had a Perkins desil engine. I asked a Shell engineer about that and he said" Would you drink from a dirty toilett "? and I said no, then he asked " If I ran the contents through that filter till it showed perfectly clear, would you drink it then "? again I said no !. " he asked why ? and I said all you have done is taken all the particulates out but the liquid (urine) is still there. He said "Exactly, the filter takes out the particulates but the acids and contaminates that build up in the oil are still there, that is why you change the oil. Look at lead deposits under the sludge in a oil pan and the pits in bearing surfaces. They were not ground in by dirt they were erroded by acids. Don't need to say more.
Take Care and oil is cheap insurance, Old Navy
I hope noone thought I was promoting these I was just stating a fact. I would never not chang oil or use ass wipe as a filter.
My Dad and I used one of these things in the eighties on a '57 Century with a 292 Interceptor. A couple of points I can make in addition to what has been posted. The oil stays remarkably clean and you must use the industrial type toilet paper like you find in public restrooms. As everyone has undoubtably found out, that kind of tp is very thin and the rolls are quite dense. If you use regular household tp then the oil makes channels through the roll and no filtering happens. Of course you still change the oil regularly.
Joe
these suckers are still popular. either they still make them or there is lots of old stock being sold.
I've talked to people who think because the oil is squeaky clean that they do not need to change it, but as stated here it may be clean but it still breaks down over time.

gotta be someone here who actually uses this system. c'mon.. speak up....
what do they look like?
I think I may have a few.
if you had one you'd know it... it is embossed with "Frantz oil cleaner" on the bottom of the can. they are a plated steel can which suprisingly is just the size of a roll of toilet paper..... with an aluminum top and two threaded holes for in and out, then there is a chrome mounting bracket. they have a clamp that holds the bucket to the lid.
made by sky corp in Stockton California
ok, just dug the ones I was thinking of out,
these are Motor Gaurd regular canister filter type..
I think...
Attached Files:
Heres a picture of mine...Its down in the left corner of the pic..I had it stripped up...came out pretty good. I never had mine hooked up...it always leaked. I ran a line up into it and back out so it looked all legit! But they do add some style
The fellow I bought my plasma cutter from said that he added this filter and it used a roll of toilet paper. The plasma cutter isn't hooked up yet, so I don't know how well it works.
Do they still make those? My Dad ran them on all our company trucks in the 60s 70s all Chevy trucks with SB, White Cloud worked the best..I still have one truck,now retired, 77 three-quarter ton, that was starting in on its second Million miles, third engine, I still have some of those filters layin around somewhere....
What do ya' do then, call ROTO-ROOTER?????
I got to admit ,I think the can looks pretty good on the firewall. May make a good place for a stash! Anybody got one to sell?
Those are cool... but
.... not changing your oil ever is a bad idea. The oil may be clean but it breaks down. Heat and pressure actually takes Dino oil and starts to re-refine it into something not so good. The additives probably start to break down, and moisture and acids will go through any filter. Syn oil would do better, but still... oil is cheap.. just change it every once in awhile.
My dad and most of his buddies used these on their rv tow rigs (pick-up trucks, diesel and gas) in the seventies and eighties. They all swore by them. Even as a kid I thought using a roll of shit paper was kinda goofy. They all still changed oil regularly.
Boy, I haven't thought about those in years. Back in the '50's and '60's, they were advertised pretty heavy. I really don't know how many people actually bought them, I never knew anyone. I would think w/the right kind of t.p., and regular oil changes, they could work well as a second filter.......Ole Pork
My auto shop teacher used those back in the '70s, might still be using them now. He had them on air-cooled VWs, of course that type of filter just bypasses a little oil and filters it.
The roll of paper had to be changed at 500 mile intervals to keep it from breaking down, it's not like you waited 3,000 or 5,000 miles to do it. He told me that he never changed the oil, that by adding new oil you just introduced new acids and such. A true oil-nerd, the boys at Bob Is The Oil Guy would be proud.
He may have been adding Bardhal or something to replenish the additives. About 10 years after high school I bought a '66 Type II (bus) VW pickup from one of his students, it had a Frantz filter installed on it.
The first thing I did to it when I got it home was to remove that filter, I still have it stashed up in the attic somewhere.
A number of years ago; an independant lab tested oil that had been RE-CYCLED a number of times through "toilet paper filters."
The results showed that what Old Navy is talking about was taking place.
The oil LOOKED CLEAN; (low particulates) but chemically it was becoming an ACID BATH!
An oil change is cheap; compaired to a "wasted" engine!!
(especially a flathead!!)
Heres a picture of mine...Its down in the left corner of the pic..I had it striped up...came out pretty good. I never had mine hooked up...it always leaked. I ran a line up into it and back out so it looked all legit! But they do add some style.
you have a later one. the early ones didn't have the 2 knobs to tighten it down. there is an O ring between the can and the lid. yours is prolly missing or dried out if it leaks.
here's the one I just got. it is missing the bracket, but it is unused in the box with instructions.
there are several variations of how the base and the can connect to each other.
I just went through the instructions and no where does it say you'll never have to change the oil again. I think that is an assumption people came up with due to the appearance of the oil.

believe me, if the company felt you never had to change the oil again that would be the first thing on every page...
NEVER change your oil again for the life of your car!
something like that...
I will say they LOOK cool, but that's where it stops ! Maybe mount one and "fake-it" but stop there.
Maybe when these were first brought to market they were better than filters of that era, but even though we love to old theme, if you think they will replace todays' filters , you are as full-of-shit as the to
toilet paper your about to use
... they do not replace the regular filter. you use both. this is an auxillary "oil cleaner".
Rework the oil filter using parts from later style oil filters like System 1 or Peterson or...this Stilko I did using System 1's internals with an Offy adapter for BBC.
Attached Files:
speaking of using toilet paper for an oil filter, is there any truth to using a roll of it in a stock canister type of oil filter instead of the metal slip in filter?
I can rememeber back in the early 60's as a kid, around construction sites, seeing black, oiley toilet paper rolls laying around on the ground where they had changed the oil in the construction equipment. No EPA back then, just dump the old oil on the ground.
My '52 Chevy wagon has a toilet paper filter on it, but when we got the car running the filter lines leaked so we disconnected it. Interesting setup, I think mine is all steel, must be a different brand.

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Can I reuse a paper oil filter?

Disposable oil filters are not designed to last for more than one oil change. Almost all disposable oil filters will get clogged before they make it to the second change. They're meant to be used only once. Reusing a disposable oil filter from the previous oil change may cause a lot of damage.

Can oil be filtered with filter paper?

The oil uptake ability of the superhydrophobic filter paper was evaluated and the results show that the filter paper can selectively adsorb oil floating on a water surface or in aqueous emulsions. Furthermore, filtration of mixtures of oil and water through the paper can reduce the water content in the oil.

Which paper is used in oil filter?

Oil Filter Paper is used in oil filter elements, which protect the lubrication system of the engine. It can be supplied in roll, plain or corrugated. Thickness Available: 0.35 - 0.65mm.