On Aug 11, I made a post about my crushed Kelly oil filter and
included pictures. I want to set the record straight. The failed
filter was the wrong filter for the engine. I am both sorry for and
embarrassed by my mistake. The difference between the correct filter
(48108-1) and the incorrect filter(48110) is an internal oil bypass
valve in the correct filter. I was unaware until about a week ago
that there was any substantive difference between the two filters
other than the 108 had female threads and the 110 had male
threading. I'll explain how all of this happened.
I was at home and going to do an Aircraft Spruce order and remembered
that I needed more oil filters. I didn't remember the filter number
so I looked it up in the A/C Spruce catalog where the IO-540 was
listed under the 110 filter. When I got the 110's it was obvious
that one filter(110) was male and the other filter (108) female.
That wasn't a big problem because the male adapter for the ECI angled
filter adapter came off with the 108 filter. I figured there was no
sense of messing around with the male adapter if it comes off easily--
just use the filter with the male threading built in. So I put the
110 filter on and flew with no indications that there were any
problems until I took it off and found the filter media crushed
inside the metal shell. This was around OSH time so I asked Kelly
what might be the problem. The very short answer from them was the
engine. I also asked the Mattituck guy what might be the problem.
His answer was the filter. I emailed the Light Plane Maintenance
editor and asked the same question and his answer was the filter. I
also had emails from people on the RV-10 list telling me to check the
engine and hoses which I did. Nothing seemed amiss with the engine,
hoses, or oil pressure. Since I could find nothing wrong with the
engine and I ordered new Champion filters and put a new Champ 110
on. I checked it regularly and it wasn't looking distressed at all.
There were no signs of crushing. I thought my problems were over.
While all of this was going on Kim Santerre of LPM wanted pictures of
my crushed filter and I sent them. He was doing an article in LPM on
defective filters and my problem fit right in. The article appeared
last month in LPM with my filter pictures prominently on the cover.
Kelly was not happy about the coverage and started discussions with
LPM. While digging deeper to address Kelly's concerns, Santerre
contacted Mattituck and found out that my model engine ships with the
ECI angle adapter and should have a 108 filter because the adapter
has no bypass valve. Santerre thought that I must have the straight
adapter with the integral oil bypass valve since I was using the 110
filter. That's when I found out about the real difference between a
108 and a 110. It was very embarrassing to tell him that I had an
angled adapter and I should have been using the 108 filter. A
clarification is to appear in the next issue of LPM. Kim Santerre
has been very gracious during all of this fiasco.
Apparently I'm not the only owner who has been confused about the the
108 and 110 filters. Mattituck has a warning that they now ship with
the ECI adapter equipped engines. My engine was shipped in July,
2007 and the warning came out in Oct 2007. See the attachment. I
think that ECI has a poor adapter design since it is possible to
remove the male threading with no difficulty. A fixed male thread
design would make it impossible to use the wrong filter. I still
think that the Champion filter is superior to the Kelly since it
survived in a situation where the Kelly failed although I'm sure the
Kelly will work just fine in the proper installation.
Sheldon Olesen
N475PV 119 hrs.
