Air filter service indicators , They were put on every machine the company owns .Seems like they give up in a year or so . Have pulled filters that are losing boost , power and mileage . Just shake the filter and create a cloud .....Still no movement . Just me or what ?
I had one that actually gave a reading once. The mechanics did not seem real interested unless it was totally in the red. Seems to me they don nothing, then in one day just go from 0 - full. Never had much use for them.
never seen one work so far.
Mine always seem to work.Don't know how accurate they are but if it's in the orange or red,that filter will be dirty.I believe they take time to respond to a vacuum loss.
Take one off and suck on it, you will see it doesn't require much vaccuum to make it stick in the red. A filter has to be really really dirty for it to go red, probably most air cleaners are changed before they need be, mine included. I believe moisture in the air can make them stick but still better than no indicator. One other problem is if they are remotely mounted with an air line running thru a hot engine compartment the line could break or melt and go un noticed sucking dirty air. My guess is most of you who say they don't work have never had a dirty enough filter to make it work, the pletes have to be full of dirt for the indicator to go red
I've had filters dirty enough to make the engine smoke, heat up, and have diminished power, indicator reading ok. I have sucked on them, and they work that way. Not saying they never do, just not often on the older equiopment I work on. Maybe when they are newer....
I've used them for years and trust most all that I've had on the machines I used to work on. I don't pull air filters until those things are at least three quarters of the way to red and most of the time the operator's ran them into the red and then called me. I stopped randomly pulling and blowing out air filters. What we found with a little research is the you get more dirt in the intake pulling the filters than you get running with a dirty one. Nowadays the electronics don't give you any choice. They sense a little restriction and you are derated. A little more restriction and they shut you down.
In the early days, the product quality wasn't all that good I found, but most were just never serviced or checked and were often stuck or broken. The later models were pretty good I found and I depended on them, particularly on machines that worked in very dusty environments. Like any other part of a machine, the filter indicators require a bit of maintenance and TLC.
I have a cold air intake on my Dodge Cummins pickup. Even with a freshly washed and re-oiled filter it will pull all the way into the red, just because the engine is breathing WAY better with the K&N than it ever did with the factory system.
If your indicator is located in the manifold betwen the filter and the engine then the fact it's pulling into the red after you have cleaned and oiled your K&N filter indicates the restriction is HIGHER than it should be, not lower .......... your engine's not breathing better, its breathing worse IMHO. My own experience of air filter restriction indicators is that they are a bit fragile and prone to cracking from vibration, but correctly located and protected they work well.
We pull regular maintenance on everything and don't worry much about indicators, if you have one running in the red, you missed some cleaning somewhere along the line or maybe need to install a pre cleaner and keep it cleaned out as well. Filters are cheap compared to any engine overhaul and a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure any day. If you have operators that wait until its in the red to call to have it cleaned, maybe start with some simple guidelines of saying regular maintenance is needed if they get to the red thats when there's a new operator sitting in the seat and he's headed home or looking for a new job somewhere else, does he wait until he looses oil pressure to determine if oil should be added or checked? Around here the machine is ones job, and if its not taken care of properly he has no job to come to work for, even if he doesn't have to do the maintenance himself he can pull a dipstick and look to see if it needs oil added or keep an eye on hours to tell someone the oil needs changing and make sure the filters are blown out regularly, anything less and he's no operator at all just a driver sitting in the seat, IMHO.
Randy. Agree 100%. We tell operators to check the indicators and call us as they are approaching the red so that we can get replacement filters out there at lunch break, shift change, whatever so that it does not affect production. I should have mentioned that on the modern machines that have a vacuum sensor mounted in the intake manifold connected up to the diagnostics it usually screams rape long before the mechanical indicator gets into the red.
My indicator is located on the front of the filter it self. Kindof a dumb spot for it, but thats why I'm not an engineer for K&N!
When i was working land claearing i was paid to do a pre trip inspection on my equipment, (JD clc200) so i blew out my air filter everyday and it got changed every 5000 hrs.... so i never really used one of those things...
That makes no sense at all, unless you are supposed to read it backwards?
Even where you say it's installed it could still be working correctly so long as it's plumbed into the filter so that it measures the pressure (or vacuum in this case) in the chamber after the air has gone through the filter.