oil filter wrench

I managed for about thirty years by banging a screwdriver through the filter, its not as though you want to save the old filter. I recently bought one of the chain type jobies for a pound, its not elegant but it gets the filter off.

ok, sounds a bit violent to me :)

What I don't get with filters is if you do it up hand tight when you come to change its it's locked on tight like hulk hogan did it up, whys does that happen ?

Agreed. Chain type.

It's called heat.

Usually it's not that tight and you can get it off by hand.

Maybe the last person who changed your oil _was_ Hulk Hogan. Who did you buy the car from?

Those chain type wrenches don't have much affect sometimes, we use a snap-on belt type wrench which some 'other' cheaper makes such as draper have copied

The Oil Filter tightens up when the internal valve is operated by the oil pressure from the engine.

hulk hogan I bought it from a local car dealship, they have a garage on the side of there forcourt who do all their servicing. Perhaps they over tightened it or the heat as gaazafield said expanded it ? making it tighter to come off.

I'll have alook out for the chain type one.

Never had a problem with the tighest of oil filters. It bites into the canister to get it off. I started using these as I had been supplied with an oil filter and whacked a screwdriver through the old one to get it off. The new one was the wrong one as the threads were different. I needed the car to get back to the shop to get the right one. Not easy when you've whacked a screwdriver through your oil filter. Pain in the arse that was.

I've never used anyhting other than a screwdriver and a hammer but I always made sure the replacement was the correct one .I was never able to undo the old one by hand .

Stuart

I used to remember in the old days some oil filters had a hexagon built into the casing. These were always dead easy to remove with an ordinary socket or spanner, shame it did'nt catch on!

Chris

It did, all VAG PD TDi filter housings have the hex type casing

The strap type seem to provide the best easy grip. The chain type (metal to metal) tend slip until you are at the point of crushing the old filter and seem to just of the edge for the really stubborn ones.

I have even made do with a short loop of thin rope, winding it round over itself, then inserting a screwdriver through the loop end. I have in the past knocked a screw driver through to act as a lever and found that if the canister is really tight the driver can tear the metal up, leaving you wondering if its going to come loose first or rip the top right off.

So I always try hand first, then strap, then finally chain.

"gazzafield" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net...

Did you drive you car back to the shop with a hole in the oil filter ?

I'll buy one of the strap ones but do as you advised hand, strap then if that fails buy the chain one.

Thanks Harry your a welath of knowledge :) and all

"gazzafield" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net...

I thought you might have stuck some gum in the puncture holes and driven it just joking btw.

K&N filters still do:

Well, hardly. Had to arrange a lift.

Never know the belt/strap type not to get the most stubborn filters off & it also saves the filter being damaged, if it does need to be replaced before you can get the correct filter.

They are being sold on ebay for about £3.50 the cheap ones which says they can be used to open jars aswell, I suppose they are all the same ?

As you have found, there are various types of implements available, none of them is the best in all cases, it depends on things like what the access to your filter is like. Most people who work on various different cars will have 2 or more types.

One I've got is like a big pair of pliers, but the jaws are formed into a big curve with teeth on the inside of the curves to grip the filter. I got it for £1.99 from one of the crap shops, and I was surprised to find how good it was, it even opened (just) enough to undo the big filter on the Ford Cargo I had until recently.

It's like most things involving cars, there is rarely one way which is right and all other ways wrong, it depends on what you've got, and many people have found new ways of doing things by being forced to do it when the 'proper' equipment was not available.

Steve