tech49

A65 Oil Filter

I mounted a canister type oil filter to my 66 Lightning. The perfect place is to weld a small 1" x 3/16ths flat plate, approximately 2" long to the back of the two brackets that provide the rear engine mounts. The new mounting plate, which now connects the two engine mounting brackets is located just above the lower mounting bolt holes. I took the brackets off and made some spacers (4) out of plastic pipe so the bracket would be the correct width when they are welded together. I drilled the two holes to mount the HD type filter housing to the now joined mounting brackets. I mounted the filter housing with allen caps screws as regular hex head are hard to get a socket on them. Additionally, I took the 2 9/16 inch bolt that provides one of the rear engine mounts and replaced it with a 2 1/2 inch bolt and nylock nut. This is important and makes engine replacement a breeze as it now allows you to replace all the bolts on the mounting brackets and frame after the engine is in place. The brackets with filter assembly slip into place from underneath very easily. Trust me it makes the engine go in easy too. The book says to leave the engine brackets attached to the motor when removing. Not any more. Now you have a oil filter that has its inlet and outlet right next to the lines coming from the sump. It is vertical so you can spin off the filter and not cover your driveway with oil and it its out of the way of the swing arm. When piping up the filter, you need to be careful on the piping so you don't flood (or starve) the top end. On my 66, the top end feed is out of the top of the tank, so all I have to do is pipe the return line through the filter.

If you have an arrangement where the oil to the top end is fed from the sump, you need to plug that outlet and install a tee after the filter so that the top end is not overfed. I'm afraid that if you don't put in the tee, the head will get more and more flow of unfiltered oil as the filter backpressure increases. The above arrangement is very clean and neat. To me it looks better than those little MAP filters and has a lot more filtering capacity. When changing oil ALWAYS remember to fill up the filter before screwing it on. I also remove my plugs and kick over motor by foot until I see oil returning to the tank. This prevents a dry startup.

On the tee, I used a brass female tee with 1/8th inch pipe threads in all three connections. On the inlet side from the filter output I screwed in a 3/8ths brass barbed fitting that matches up with the 3/8ths outlet from the HD filter. On the tee to the top end I screwed in a 1/8th barbed fitting to match the top end feed. The outlet to the tank is 5/16ths and you use a 5/16ths barbed fitting. All these parts I found in the plumbing section of a Lowes home improvement center. I have a nearly identical set up on my B50.

Mike