Crankcase breather oil catch can

[warrenperkinson]

My 2.25l petrol sIIa (being a non-North American model) has the crankcase oil vent open and vents directly into the engine bay.

On a a recent road trip I got sick (fortunately not literally) of the cab filling up with smoke from the engine, so I've scavenged from one of my donor engines the PCV and oil filler pipe (with the PCV outlet).

But enough oil comes out of the vent currently for me to think that fitting an oil catch can would be a sensible idea while I'm at it.

Has anyone else installed an oil catch can into the oil PCV linkage? Do you have any advice or suggestions?

Cheers,
Warren.

[SafeAirOne]

You could always just plumb in a cyclone breather system like they did on some of the 2.5's and the 4 cylinder diesel engines. This takes the crankcase vent air, swirls it around in a small canister that separates the oil, which drains back into the crankcase, and returns the oil-free air to the intake:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/610/21565534540_71fd61bf16_b.jpg

[warrenperkinson]

Hi Mark,

That's an excellent idea! The part you refer to (from what appears to be the military spec 2.5l) ERR2886 looks to be prohibitively expensive, but a slightly different part ERR1471 off the 300TDi engines could be made to fit by the look of it.

Another approach I will consider is making a catch can from a air compressor water separator. This is well documented on YouTube and would likely be cheaper - but I'm not sure it has the capacity to hold the volume of oil my engine spits out...

I'm going to have to investigate...

Thanks for your suggestion,
Warren.

[SafeAirOne]

Yeah, just use the ERR1471 part. Not sure if our hosts carry that separator, but it's only $25 or so from most suppliers and it has the diaphragm valve built in (it's separate on the military one in the diagram I posted). You can drain it into a container if you don't feel like welding a drain elbow to your oil pan.

Here's the diagram of the non-military setup:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/681/21771113465_5d3b7cfb6f_b.jpg