Oil Filter; Is Bigger Necessarily Better?

I just thought I would ask the question from the pros on here. I have a Vanguard V-twin 356777-0115-E1 that I am getting ready to tune up. When I got the mower two years ago from my Stepdad it had a short oil filter on it which I tried to replace with another similar filter but the store I went to did not have the same one. Somehow I ended up with a full size filter that screwed on and worked. Then last year when I went to the local dealer they tried selling me another short filter but this one would not screw onto the oil filter adapter. So I went ahead and put on another full sized filter and went about my business. I am quite particular about using only "genuine" parts and following exactly as the manufacturer recommends so this year I went to Partstree and ordered the "correct" filter, part number 842921 which is a short filter.

This got me to thinking, so long as I have enough space should I just stick with the full sized filter? The filter media in the larger filter will have a greater surface area which should help to remove additional particulates or at the very least take longer to become saturated. The real question is, are there any drawbacks to using a filter that is bigger than what you really need or than what is recommended?

Thanks in advance.

Mike

use OEM B&S filter on your Vanguard engine

https://www.google.com/search?q=b&s...j69i57j0l4.16221j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

In my opinion if you are changing your oil regularly there is no reason to use a larger filter.

Without knowing the specs of both filters, no comparison can be made, except this: With all things being equal, a filter with more media will take longer to clog. A larger filter will also add to the oil capacity of the engine.

When I kicked off oil filters worried the life out of me.
Then I checked the specs to find out they were all as close to being the same as it was possible to be.
So from my point of view, if a Briggs long will fit then a Briggs long gets fitted for no other reason than it holds 4oz more oil.
The deciding factor is generally what will actually fit in the space.
Thus while there are 18 different filters basically I have a small & large NPT for Briggs, Kohler & Tecumseh and a small & large metric for Kawasaki, Honda & Honda clones.


The customers like to see big filters but much like Rivets , changing the oil is far more important than changing the filter

With only owning this mower for two season and only putting 25 hours on the first and 50 or so the second, I am not sure if the filter has made a difference in the life of the oil or not. I am quite sure that after an entire summer of mowing last year, the oil in the engine was still looking clean. At the start of each season I typically start it up and let it run for about 10 minutes and then drain. I then fill it up with oil and let it run for another ten minutes and drain. Then after that I change out the filter and fill it a last time. This has worked well for me over the years.

On all of my other non-filtered small engines I do the same thing just without the filter change. So far, the Honda engines have always come out clean each spring, but the 159cc on the Cub Cadet ST100 and the 254cc on the Ariens Deluxe 28 both come out dirty each tune up.

Also, this brings to mind what my Grandfather would always do. He used to buy only Kohler powered Cub Cadet Garden Tractors. I believe that these older ones all had Kohler Command Horizontal Shaft V-Twins. Anyway, we would always flush the engine using Kerosene. He would probably run, drain, fill with kerosene, crank over and run for about 3 seconds, repeat two or three more times and once completely drained fill back up with oil and go. To my knowledge his mowers never had any engine failures. It was always the hydrostatics that would fail from mowing some insane hills on their 10 acre property.

Either way, I think that this year I am just going to try out the regular "short" filter and see how things go. If for some reason I start to see the oil get dirty before the end of the season, I can always switch over to the larger filter.

Thanks all!

Kerro was fine for flushing out engines back in the 50's when they were built to last and were full of roller & ball bearings.
Modern engines are built to be cheap, not to last a long time so have no proper bearings .
Thus flushing with kerro is not desirable and quite capable of doing major damage to the running surfaces.

Oil should always be changed at the end of the season so the engine sits over winter ( summer for snow blowers ) with fresh clean oil.
Chemical corrosion only happens when the engine is sitting so you want to get rid of all of the acid by-products of combustion before you put it into storage.
Also despite all of the detergents in modern oils , leaving dirty oil sitting still for a long time will allow the particulate contaminates to settle in the bottom of the engine forming sludge.
Sludge formation is desirable with remote oil tanks, not with wet sump engines.

bertsmobile1 said:

Kerro was fine for flushing out engines back in the 50's when they were built to last and were full of roller & ball bearings.
Modern engines are built to be cheap, not to last a long time so have no proper bearings .
Thus flushing with kerro is not desirable and quite capable of doing major damage to the running surfaces.

Oil should always be changed at the end of the season so the engine sits over winter ( summer for snow blowers ) with fresh clean oil.
Chemical corrosion only happens when the engine is sitting so you want to get rid of all of the acid by-products of combustion before you put it into storage.
Also despite all of the detergents in modern oils , leaving dirty oil sitting still for a long time will allow the particulate contaminates to settle in the bottom of the engine forming sludge.
Sludge formation is desirable with remote oil tanks, not with wet sump engines.

Click to expand...

:thumbsup: X 2 ! !

bertsmobile1 said:

Oil should always be changed at the end of the season so the engine sits over winter ( summer for snow blowers ) with fresh clean oil.
Chemical corrosion only happens when the engine is sitting so you want to get rid of all of the acid by-products of combustion before you put it into storage.
Also despite all of the detergents in modern oils , leaving dirty oil sitting still for a long time will allow the particulate contaminates to settle in the bottom of the engine forming sludge.
Sludge formation is desirable with remote oil tanks, not with wet sump engines.

Click to expand...

I never really thought about that. I guess I could just go to changing my oil in the fall before I store it and then doing a flush in the spring. I just don't like the idea of starting a mowing season and then running 50-70 hours on oil that is also sat over an entire winter regardless of if it was clean or not. Since I already do a flush every year this really wouldn't cause me to use any more oil.

If you want to flush then put cheap Walmart oil at the end of the season then change that for good quality mower oil at the beginning of the season.
Leaving the mower sitting all winter with clean oil in there is not much different to mowers sitting in a mower shop unsold.
The only difference is the shop is heated during the day but I doubt the heating stays on all night.