"John Galt" style upflow filtering on steroids

[Pir8Darryl]

Again, just thinking out loud and sharing.

After reading thru the JG-upflow discussion, I pondered the posibilities of improving on the upflow method and came up with the plans shown below.

At it's heart, it uses one of Omar's 8 foot long 1 micron filter bags, found HERE
They sell for about $8 each, or $50 for a case of 8.

I purchased a case from him last year. I clamped one to the open lid of a 275 gallon tote, and thus far have poured about 60 gallons of WVO down into it. It shows no signs of clogging,,, but it may be slowing. Takes about an hour to an hour and a half to make enough room to pour another cubie into.

I suppose when it does finally clog, I'll turn it inside out and clean it off, then soak it in a bucket of very soapy water [dawn seems to work best to break down grease], then back-flow it with a garden hose,,, let it dry, and use it again... No idea on the total lifespan of one of these filter socks, but I'm willing to bet it can be cleaned and re-used several times.

The next improvement is the addition of a racor 2020 filter element fitted to the end of the barrel pump. Their available in micron ratings from 2 up to 30 microns. Since all the oil has to pass thru a 1 micron bag, I'd go for a 10 micron racor element. Also the Racor has the aquablok treatment... Yea, much has been made of the aquablock's effectiveness in VO, but it's a bit of cheap final insurance... And since it stays submerged in the VO barrel, if you do actually have a water problem, it will swell shut over time, so your at least aware of the problem and can address it.

Notice how the racor is held at a 90* angle so it's exposed to the best ammount of oil without dipping down into the bad oil.
The racor is modified as per my "$80 one shot" plans HERE

In summary, John's "10 gallon barrel on top" is replaced with an 8 foot long piece of 6 inch PVC sewer pipe. The panty hose are replaced with a x-large filter sock, and the barrel pump is enhanced with the addition of an aquablok filter.

A simple gravity fed filtration system that requires no electricity, filters down to 1 micron, and offers [some] protection against water.

[Pir8Darryl]

I'm fishing for comments here...
Anything you have to say, good or bad, please dont hold back.

[Pir8Darryl]

Just for giggles I built this last night. The sewer pipe was $8, the elbow was $11, and the reducers were about $17 total. I had the barrel sitting around.

I pulled WVO out of the tote on the back of my truck. It's straight dumpster trash, but I dropped a heating element into it last friday for 12 hours, and let it settle all weekend, so it really looked nice.

It's flowing thru very nicely, dropping down at a rate of about 2 inches a minute. At this point, the barrel is 3/4 full.

Like I said, I did this just for giggles. It does not supply nearly enough VO for my needs, but someone with a TDI or an MBZ would find this setup perfect for their needs!