Pcv Catch Can Installed

cujo8 · May 8, 2011

Well I drained my AMW oil catch can today after ~ 780 miles from when I first installed this kit and all I can say is OMG this catch can caught a lot of oily sludge (125mL) after only 1-1/2 tanks of gas. One thing I noticed when draining the can is the petcock drain became clogged with something after only draining half of the oily sludge from the can, so I removed the petcock to let it drain completely. After it was completely drained I rinsed out the can with some brake cleaner, so I could get a better look at was trapped on the bottom of the catch can in the bottom groove. I found some black particals that must have been combustion byproducts or possibly something that came from the rubber hose I used to install the can. I was really surprised to find this much oily sludge after only 2 weeks of driving. I feel the catch can was ~3/4 full at the time I emptied it, so I will have to drain this catch can every 2-3 weeks. I collected all this oil even though my pcv hose connection was leaking slightly at the rear valve cover location, which I posted about earlier.

Below are some links to the AMW Oil Catch Can Drain I did today:

cujo8 · May 8, 2011

Strange i never had the leak problem and i used the hose that came with the kit. I did put one of the included hose clamps on the valve cover pcv port though, haven't had a single leak yet.

When I first installed the hose at this location it was quite tight, so I did not use the supplied clamp. Today when I was looking for leaks the hose came off with just a slight pull and when I put it back on I could not believe how loose it was. It probably became loose after the engine got hot and it didn't retighten once it cooled. Actually I like the way I've got it hooked up now, since I know it is not leaking anymore and now I don't have to remember where I put the the other half of the original PCV hose years later, since it is back on the truck now.

dlstewart01 · May 8, 2011

Dayum, I never got that much out of mine. And what collects in mine is more or less black oil. You have a lot of condensation.

cujo8 · May 8, 2011

Dayum, I never got that much out of mine. And what collects in mine is more or less black oil. You have a lot of condensation.

This maybe like this because I discovered the hose that I attached to the PCV fitting was really lose and was leaking and it has been raining here for the last two weeks. I fixed the leaky PCV line connection today and I will check it again in a couple of weeks to see what it looks like. I'm kind of hoping it does not fill this quickly in the future, but it's hard for me to understand why it would fill faster with a leaky hose. It does make sense that the leaky connection could have been sucking in moist air, so the extra volume may be due the moisture content in the air that got sucked through the leaking connection.

Doug_Scott · May 8, 2011

Didn't air enter thru the filter medium and go through a hose down to the valve cover, so this was an intake filter, not dealing with air from the interior of the engine. Changed many of them on my old Ford truck.

Yes this was a filter that clipped to the inside of the old style air cleaner setup and a hose would hook the barbed end and lead down the PCV (Positive Crankcase Valve) that slid inside of a rubber grommet on the valve cover. Actually this was the means to vent air/gases/oily vapor from inside the engine. The reason most people would change these filters was that they would get soaked with dirty oil coming out of the engine and after awhile they would begin to drip oil inside of the air cleaner, so that when you did change this filter you also had to wipe out the oil inside of the air cleaner.

This oily vapor is the same thing we are trying to capture using these PCV Catch Can kits in these modern engines, which we feel is a better than letting the engine try to burn this nasty stuff up. I believe this one reason for the build up deposits you find on the intake/exhaust valves and cylinder heads.

The filter was not connected to the PCV valve. It was the other side of the "system". PCV on older cars went from either intake manifold vacuum port or the base of the carb to either the rocker cover or in some cases an opening through the intake to the block (early ford FE engines for example used the road draft tube opening). The filter shown above was inside the air cleaner assy, and was connected to the other rocker cover (in the case of V engines) or the other end of the rocker cover on an inline engine. It filtered the air being drawn into the crankcase to replace any air that was removed by the PCV. If the engine is loose enough, the filter was not even used, as the air was replaced by blowby.

BigBlueLB756 · May 8, 2011

That's exactly what I remembered, and at this stage of life, that's remarkable.

I do notice a lot of people with catch cans complaining of a hissy air leak. There seems to be a lot of sense to me in just snipping the stock line in two and hooking the catch can hoses to that. That way you're using the stock fittings at either end and screw clamps should be able to snug up the hoses pretty tightly. If you want to go back to stock configuration, a 2" piece of hose makes a good "splint". Of course, this is just my humble opinion, and should be taken as such.

DaveH71 · May 9, 2011

Good god cujo i didn't have anywhere near that amount in my can. I probably had about a 1/4 of that. I couldn't even drain it out through the petcock because the level wasn't high enough to reach the hole. Maybe it has something to do with you having the 5.3L. Mine was almost the exact same consistency though, maybe a little less water.

4wd · May 9, 2011

That's exactly what I remembered, and at this stage of life, that's remarkable.

I do notice a lot of people with catch cans complaining of a hissy air leak. There seems to be a lot of sense to me in just snipping the stock line in two and hooking the catch can hoses to that. That way you're using the stock fittings at either end and screw clamps should be able to snug up the hoses pretty tightly. If you want to go back to stock configuration, a 2" piece of hose makes a good "splint". Of course, this is just my humble opinion, and should be taken as such.

That's what cujo8 proves to be the best option and that's how I will do mine.

Mossyoakglock · May 9, 2011

I played around with my connections this weekend and could not find any leak. Everything is tight. I even did the starter fluid/ether test on the can itself and there was no change in idle.

I do not hear any hissing noise coming from the either of the connections at the motor, just at the can. I'm pretty positive that it's just the air being forced into the can and it makes a hissing noise as it's passing through the filter element. I checked the can and it is catching oil as well.

txab · May 9, 2011

I played around with my connections this weekend and could not find any leak. Everything is tight. I even did the starter fluid/ether test on the can itself and there was no change in idle.

I do not hear any hissing noise coming from the either of the connections at the motor, just at the can. I'm pretty positive that it's just the air being forced into the can and it makes a hissing noise as it's passing through the filter element. I checked the can and it is catching oil as well.

Bingo!

BigBlueLB756 · May 9, 2011

Isn't the air being drawn "into" the can by the vacuum provided from the intake manifold?

dewfpo · May 9, 2011

Isn't the air being drawn "into" the can by the vacuum provided from the intake manifold?

Yes, that line is under negative pressure (vacuum).

DEWFPO

cujo8 · May 9, 2011

I played around with my connections this weekend and could not find any leak. Everything is tight. I even did the starter fluid/ether test on the can itself and there was no change in idle.

I do not hear any hissing noise coming from the either of the connections at the motor, just at the can. I'm pretty positive that it's just the air being forced into the can and it makes a hissing noise as it's passing through the filter element. I checked the can and it is catching oil as well.

I did the unlit propane technique when I was trying to track down the leak all around the can and at both hose connection points and I did not notice any change in engine idle anywhere, but there definitely was a leak at the PCV connection point as I pointed out earlier in a previous post. Did you use a clamp on the hose going to the PCV connection? I didn't and that was my mistake. When I first installed the hose the connection was tight and when I started the engine to check for leaks everything seemed tight and there was no hissing sound, but after the engine warmed up the rubber hose on the PCV connection expanded and began leaking. I would suggest you give that hose connection a tug to make sure it is tight if you haven't already.

The more I think about it, I think this leak is why I had so much water in my catch can. It had been raining very often over the last two weeks and the vacuum leak at the PCV connection was sucking in all that moist air and it was condensing out the water in the cool oil catch can. From the looks of it I believe 20-30% of the liquid was water in what I drained out of the can. Now that the leak has been fixed, it will be interesting to see what I find after the next two weeks.

txab · May 9, 2011

When you create a vacuum, higher pressure will push its way into that vacuum. It's not sucked in. They work together. The old saying nature abhors a vacuum....

The sound that is heard in some of your piping and/or catch cans is simply the sound of air traveling through hoses, pipes and fittings, with all their restrictions. The same sound as air being forced through a venturi on a carburetor. The sound can be magnified by the aluminum can.

Mossyoakglock · May 10, 2011

I played around with my connections this weekend and could not find any leak. Everything is tight. I even did the starter fluid/ether test on the can itself and there was no change in idle.

I do not hear any hissing noise coming from the either of the connections at the motor, just at the can. I'm pretty positive that it's just the air being forced into the can and it makes a hissing noise as it's passing through the filter element. I checked the can and it is catching oil as well.

I did the unlit propane technique when I was trying to track down the leak all around the can and at both hose connection points and I did not notice any change in engine idle anywhere, but there definitely was a leak at the PCV connection point as I pointed out earlier in a previous post. Did you use a clamp on the hose going to the PCV connection? I didn't and that was my mistake. When I first installed the hose the connection was tight and when I started the engine to check for leaks everything seemed tight and there was no hissing sound, but after the engine warmed up the rubber hose on the PCV connection expanded and began leaking. I would suggest you give that hose connection a tug to make sure it is tight if you haven't already.

The more I think about it, I think this leak is why I had so much water in my catch can. It had been raining very often over the last two weeks and the vacuum leak at the PCV connection was sucking in all that moist air and it was condensing out the water in the cool oil catch can. From the looks of it I believe 20-30% of the liquid was water in what I drained out of the can. Now that the leak has been fixed, it will be interesting to see what I find after the next two weeks.

I used the supplied clamps on all connections (at the can, PCV location and DS valve cover). I'm going to replace the clamp on the DS valve cover with one of the screw type clamps because the clamp that came with the kit was a pain (not much space to get plyers in there) and the screw type will be easier to remove if I ever need to so I will check the connection then. I also used all new hose and did not splice into the factory hose since I wanted to keep it intact if I ever needed it again.

I checked my can this weekend and there was a very small bit of oil in the can. It looked to be all oil. That's after ~120 miles or so.