Oil Pressure Hits Zero And Stays There- JGC '96

Your experience with Fram products are an exception. I firmly stand by my statement: Fram products are JUNK. Always has been, always will be. Fram products have DESTROYED two of my engines in the past, and I refuse to install their JUNK PRODUCTS in any vehicle I now own. For that matter, most aftermarket new and remanufactured parts for cars/trucks these days are also JUNK, and they won't ever be installed on any of my vehicles. Ask any decent mechanic about this, and take his answer as gospel on the matter.

The thinking man does not install JUNK PARTS in his Jeep. You do the math, genius.

Purolator manufactures OEM filters for Jeep products. The thinking man will gladly spend the extra $3.00 to purchase and install a top-quality oil filter in his Jeep.

I'm not making any big endorsement of Fram products, don't have any strong feelings about them, you shared your experience and I've shared mine.

300,000 miles says a lot, I don't see any need to change without some strong evidence that I should. I DID change oil with the new engine, the old one had 300,000 on Penzoil and Fram, the new one has Shell Rotella, partly because from everything I've heard it's excellent oil, and partly because it's what I use in my Studebakers and it's easier to just keep one kind of oil around.

And thinking men don't throw out insults with no good reason.

Jeff DeWitt

Outatime wrote:

Idiots see insults where none exist.

Troll elsewhere.

I'm hardly a troll... guess I misunderstood this comment from you, is this some kind of complement I was not previously familiar with?

"The thinking man does not install JUNK PARTS in his Jeep. You do the math, genius."

Jeff DeWitt

That report isn't exactly complementary is it? What did you switch to?

Jeff DeWitt

L.W.(Bill) Hughes III wrote:

I'll chime in again. Most of my pre-Jeep vehicles had Chrysler Slant 6 engines. Like the Jeep 4.0, the filter sits "upside down" on these engines. That is the open part with the threads is on the bottom, facing the street.

This orientation tends to make gravity drain the oil back into the pan when the engine is not running. Having a filter full of oil when you start in the morning is important, as if it drains back into the pan, the oil pump has to pump the filter full of oil before it goes out to the bearings.

Fram and purelator filters generally tended to keep the filter full overnight. AC and Motocraft would work okay at first, but would quickly begin to drain back into the pan overnight. This happened to me countless times over the years, about a weeks after an oil change, I would have to sit and wait for the oil light to go out after starting the car first thing in the morning. Changing to either a Fram or a Purelator would solve the problem until the next oil change. Regardless of the theory behind the various antidrainback valves, the ones in Fram filters work and the ones in AC and Motocraft fail after minimal use in my experience. I had the same problem with an AC filter on my 92 XJ shortly after I got it.

Note that this has nothing to do with the filter medium itself. But I change my oil regularly at 3000 miles or before, so I don't think it matters that much.

After all I have read, I prefer Purelator, but the close by stores don't carry them, so I will use Fram sometimes. I will never again buy an AC or Motocraft oil filter for a vehicle in which the filter sits upside down. On something like a 318 or 383, where the filter sits sideways or with the holes at the top, it probably doesn't matter.

Best Regards,

Dave.

Fram filters meet the minimum standards under single pass SAE J806 tests. They do not make other claims in writing other than they meet this spec.

Some other manufacturers claim to exceed the single pass SAE J806 tests and proudly promote their scores on the optional SAE J1858 multi-pass filtration test.

Be aware that the only requirement to satisfy your warranty protection at this time is passing the J806 test. If you want a filter that just passes the minimum standard then Fram is the filter for you.

I am, of course, aware that Fram earn its place, decades ago, as the top of the line in oil filtering.

I do not know if Fram ceased to improve their filters somewhere along the line or if they intentionally took a step backwards in an effort to decrease costs and maximize profits.

I might add here that a superior filter would be worth some extra cost but the superior filters are less expensive than Fram as well.

To be fair Fram does make a filter of average industry quality filter which they chose to market and price as a 'premium' filter.

Perhaps this is the "expensive" filter Bill is referring to, the filter that adds PTFE (Teflon) to your motor oil.

They haven't even gotten that far here, Bill. I was responding to an ad in the local paper, that was asking for substitute teachers, with a minimum qualification of a "high school diploma". Now that may be legal according to Colorado law and approved by the school board, but it sure isn't the best thing for the students. They hired a Spanish teacher with no degree at all, they regularly use "aides" with no teaching certificate to teach classes, one of the teachers has a "mail order" teaching certificate, people are leaving town because of the school, my neighbor's kid commutes fifty miles each way to a school where the teachers have brains. It goes on. Thank God my kids are all out of school, or I wouldn't have moved here. But I do object to their wasting my money on an inferior product.

Earle

They do have a bewildering array of filters to choose from, don't they?

Earle

Both engines had blocked oil passages due to bits of Fram's filter media breaking off and moving through the engine until they found a port small enough to block; other pieces then sealed it further.

I had advance warning on a Chrysler slant-6; the rocker arm oil ports were blocked; I pulled it apart, found the foreign material, cleaned it and dismissed it as a probable dirty short-block I'd just installed. Within a week, pressure suddenly dropped to near-zero and several mains spun. Pretty much the same deal with the 2.2 (?) Rabbit engine in the Omni; same fate, although the pan pick-up screen ended up plugged on this one instead. This time around, I hired a mechanic to find out WTH it was; he blamed the oil filter, and said Fram had changed hands and their products were now something to avoid. FWIW, he said their air filters weren't worth using either.

Good point; I can't see using a lesser-quality filter that costs more.

I can't see using a lesser-quality filter for any price, for that matter. I've had actual engine failure from junk filters; just bad luck maybe. I also had a a Fram PCV valve come apart once, dropping pieces of plastic, a spring and a steel plunger down into the overhead valvetrain assembly; found most of it after pulling the cover, and the rest ended up in the oil filter. Had to sweat another plugged oil passage from that wonderful little incident as well. Nope, nononono, no more Fram-anything for me, ever.

I think this is the first time I've heard anything bad about Fram Air Filters.

-snip- This time around, I hired a mechanic to find out WTH

I've had no probem with fram air filters. Lots of dust and none of it got into the intake. I'll take fram AF over the high-flow oiled types any day.