Oil Filter INSTALLER wrench

[rlitman]

HAND TIGHT ONLY!!! when installing.

Yes, but ...

Just my opinion, but it's an educated opinion. There is no need to ever tighten a filter beyond what you can do with your bare hand.

I agree that is the correct torque value, and that's exactly how I install a filter I can wrap my hand around without any wrist contortions.

But when you can barely get your fingertips on a filter, at arm's length (ok, so I have t-rex mini arms), with your wrist bent backwards around an obstacle, you simply cannot get it sufficiently tight with only your bare hands.

They're not that hard unless you're not on a lift.

There really isn't any filter that I've ever used something to tighten.

Perhaps that's part of it. I've never changed an oil filter on a lift.

On my Wrangler, the filter is at the limit of my arm's reach from above, and I really don't feel like getting rained on by oil trying to remove it from below while crawling on the ground. I have no issue turning it until I feel the gasket make contact, and then watch the label move 3/4 turn while I use the ******** it.

On a friend's Forester, the filter was surrounded by exhaust heat shields. There was no tool I could use to remove it but a socket. Same socket put the replacement in.

My Accord's filter is in a spot that might be easy to hand turn on a lift, but not when on your back.

My new Outback has a top-side filter. Its totally easy to change by hand, which makes it the exception, from my experience.

 

[CutterFarms]

I believe you are correct. My Mother's 15 Kia Soul's filter is located in what's almost like a semi circle cutout. You can only get your hand on about 50% of the outer surface.

My wife drives one and its a pain to change.

 

[Squankum]

I use the AST TOY730 filter wrench for the 90915-YZZD3 filter on my Camry and Tacoma

Yeah! What he said! Here's a link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00239WHLG/?tag=atomicindus08-20

What you need is a cap wrench. Or, you could just start buying Mobil 1 or K&N filters with the nut on the bottom, but the money that costs in the not-very-long run would buy you even the high quality cast aluminum cap wrench as shown above.

I went through this with my old Mercedes. I tried various cheap stamped steel cap wrenches from different local auto part stores and got nowhere fast. Then I bought the Assenmacher. It's quality stuff. Kent Bergsma, MBz guru, actually drilled and tapped his to put a set screw in the side to grip the filter, too, only for removal, I think.

(For MBz nerds, my car is a W124 300E with CIS-E, and the best trick I learned was to just give up reaching in there and remove the air cleaner housing in the first place.)



_

 

[crbnfbr]

My wife drives one and its a pain to change.

Isn't it also strange how the drain plug is toward the front of the vehicle? So, when it's up on ramps the pan tilts back away from the drain hole. Also, it's a treat rotating the tires with no central jacking point and pinch welds that look about as thick as a piece of 12ga sheet metal.

 

[Squankum]

Isn't it also strange how the drain plug is toward the front of the vehicle? So, when it's up on ramps the pan tilts back away from the drain hole. Also, it's a treat rotating the tires with no central jacking point and pinch welds that look about as thick as a piece of 12ga sheet metal.

I've always taken the front-plug concept as a gift to the tightwads who have no jack or jackstands or ramps at all, just a drain pan that's not very tall.

There are adapters for jacks that fit around the body seam, some steel, some hard plastic, some polyurethane with a big slit sawed in them, some hockey pucks with a slit sawed into them.

As for jacking, depending on weight distribution and rear suspension travel, one some cars you can just lift the car at the front jacking point and the rear tire will come off the ground, too. Of course, if your didn't just want to to a F-R/F-R rotation, but wanted to cross sides, yeah, then things get more challenging. But sometimes its easy as pie, especially if tires on/off are all you're doing.

 

[crbnfbr]

I've always taken the front-plug concept as a gift to the tightwads who have no jack or jackstands or ramps at all, just a drain pan that's not very tall.

There are adapters for jacks that fit around the body seam, some steel, some hard plastic, some polyurethane with a big slit sawed in them, some hockey pucks with a slit sawed into them.

As for jacking, depending on weight distribution and rear suspension travel, one some cars you can just lift the car at the front jacking point and the rear tire will come off the ground, too. Of course, if your didn't just want to to a F-R/F-R rotation, but wanted to cross sides, yeah, then things get more challenging. But sometimes its easy as pie, especially if tires on/off are all you're doing.

I probably could drain the oil without the ramps since I'm pretty skinny, but I prefer to get my chest pretty much under whatever I'm wrenching on.

Yeah, I've been planning on getting some hockey pucks and cutting some slits in them for use at the factory lift spots.

For jacking the entire rear at once, I've used a pretty heavy duty cross member. I just center the jack and it gets both rears up for the jack stands. Then I go to each front one at a time to get the tires off for rotation as I prefer to cross rotate as they're non directional tires.

 

[Showkey]

Interestingly, some manufacturers like GM provide torque specifications for oil filters - 22.0 pounds-feet for a Corvette. Installation requires a lot MORE force than most people can apply by hand when gripping a 3-inch filter (1.5-inch lever arm).

Better work on your grip if you follow factory specifications.

^^^^^^ true

We need some hard data ........how tight can the average Joe tighten an oil filter using just one hand ????

Remember cold oil, cold engine equals high oil pressure often well over 100 psi. Years back we did some testing and found 152 psi oil pressure on cold start ( on a normal engine) at the filter. We were checking because oil filter gaskets were blowing out on cold start.

 

[toolaholic]

[/URL][/IMG] one of the protos on a pure one 24011 filter on a 3.1 v6 lumina

 

[Karl_B]

Zoro has that Proto set for $59.

I can't say I've ever had that much trouble getting a filter on, but I don't have a lot of Toyotas come through. On the LS motors, I always put in the PF61 or equivalent so I have a longer filter to work with. My go-to for removing stuck filters is a pair of oil filter pliers, but I have used the Lisle tool on some really stubborn ones. If I can wrap my hand around it, I don't normally need tools for removing.