Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[CitroJim]

Don't forget the oil in the filter swirls round in a clockwise direction viewed from the top so over time tightening the filter by design rather than loosening it. So the longer between xhanges and the dirtier the oil the tighter it gets. Dirty oil has a higher drag factor than clean so the longer its left the tighter it gets. It was the same with traditional cartridge filters so not a new phenomenon!

That makes total sense Mick and explains it well why all of us who carefully torque find them tighter... Yep, 25 Nm sounds about right Paul and like you, I use a six-point socket...

[MattBLancs]

I'm going to "out myself as a rebel" - I routinely under tighten them, deliberately, and rarely have an issue getting them off with normal sized half in ratchet. I've never had one leak nor back itself off.

A little smear of new oil on the new O-ring and just "snugged up".

[CitroJim]

I'm going to "out myself as a rebel" - I routinely under tighten them, deliberately, and rarely have an issue getting them off with normal sized half in ratchet. I've never had one leak nor back itself off.

A little smear of new oil on the new O-ring and just "snugged up".

Now there's a plan Matt. I'll try tightening to 20 Nm on my next change and see how it goes...

[mickthemaverick]

With the old cartridge filters I used to do them hand tight and never had an issue, maybe that would work with the cannister type?

[Zelandeth]

Some long term readers of this thread might recognise this mess.



It's the control PCB for the air conditioner in my room. Over the last ~10 years it has become increasingly senile - hence the number of things unplugged. Today's exciting development was it deciding to run the condensate drain pump continually. I suspect it had actually been doing that for a while, however I wasn't aware of it until it took exception to this treatment and the bearings started screaming loudly.

They have quietened down after a bit of lubrication but I suspect they're just worn out. In fairness, the whole unit is from 1991 and spent its life prior to 2015 or so when I got it at a rental company so it had a hard life. I do actually have a replacement pump assembly I can swap in to deal with that. I need to unearth it first though.

To get us through to tomorrow though without making the pump any more irate than it already is though we've got a very ugly bodge dangling in the breeze.



I think the time may well have come to just ditch this control PCB and actually wire up my relay based circuit and my own control panel. Only bits I'll retain will be the corner of the original PCB with the transformer on it (as I'll be using 24VAC control) and the cap there (which is the run cap for the fan if I remember rightly). All the brains of the operation will revert to being relay logic and a dedicated refrigeration controller which will have control of the compressor - so anti cycle timers, hysteresis etc will all be handled by that which makes my life rather easier. I just need to make sure I've got interlocks in the logic so you can't do daft things like trying to run heating and cooling at the same time and ensure the safety lockouts for overheating, condensate overflow etc work properly. Of course it's an excuse for me to also cover the control panel with status indicators because I'm me and I'm a sucker for things like that.

That however will involve the thing being out of use for a good few hours, so that may well wait until after the current heatwave passes by. I will make a point of actually securing the relay added today though and finding an internal 24V source for it rather than the external supply it's currently tethered to. I was melting this afternoon by that point so getting up and running again was the priority once I'd established that the float switch was actually fine and got the motor to run again.