Oil Filler + Breather Renewal...

[bacardincoke 42 1 Cars]

Did Peugeot give a recommended schedule to change these?

 

I realise you can visually check the mesh in the cap and with a little more effort that in the tower, but wanting to know what, if anything was the official line.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

No idea. I stripped the top and bottom parts of mine down and replaced all the clogged up rusty mesh with scourer pad wire . I've removed and flushed it through once since build a year ago. Seems fine

[bacardincoke 42 1 Cars]

The top cap's relatively cheap if you shop around, though wouldn't pay anywhere near the £15 to £20 plus being asked by some.

 

The tower's altogether way more expensive and definitely worth trying to refurbish if possible 

 

Have seen a few posts, specially on American vintage car sites were they use some local brand of scourer pad, seems to be a common fix and work fine.

 

You can get something called 'knitted mesh', used for all sorts of things.

 

If you unroll the Peugeot mesh it looks to my eye virtually identical... for all the price it is compared to a £40 - £50 tower I'm going to give that a go, watch this space!

 

 

 

 

[bacardincoke 42 1 Cars]

Finally got some stainless steel knitted mesh, but the supplier let me down and took an age to get it sent out.

 

Initially found it hard enough to source someone selling small amounts, closest I could get was this 22m stuff.

 

I've however since got my hands on 50mm mesh from someone else, but it has yet to arrive... any tower mesh you see pictured is the old stuff only.

 

The oil cap's original mesh is 30mm'ish so 22mm works well for that. The towers is 55mm'ish and while you could use the narrow stuff by wrapping it around more, just don't have to now.

 

The old mesh for cap and tower has been insitu for so long it was completely flat when unrolled, but in reality it too started out tubular, just like the new mesh you see.

 

Side by side that exaggerates the difference in width, but they're not too far apart.

 

I'm guessing tubular was used as opposed to flat woven mesh to minimise edges that are probably where things might start to fail more easily.

 

You can cut the tubes into lengths with normal scissors, just be sure to remove any loose bits. I found it cut very neatly and didn't fray or need much tidying up.

 

Like the original stuff I doubled back the cut ends onto themselves when rolled up to secure them better.

 

The original cap mesh was held by a metal pin or tack when rolled up and seems to have been brazed on when new but mine had parted company. Imagine that falling into your engine let alone bits of mesh? I didn't bother using one, don't see any advantage as the mesh is under expanding tension and holds of its own accord when rolled up in the cap.

 

The tower mesh is contained inside that funnel shaped insert, that's just held in by friction and a slight lip on the inside of the outer body. You can push it out via the smaller tube on the base.

 

I don't know how old my cap was, the mesh looked fine inspecting it in place, it was only when it was taken out you realised it's true condition.

 

The tower was date marked 1999... but you can only properly check its mesh by pushing out the inner piece.

 

It was in better shape but you can see the dark areas? They are all on one side when rolled back up and on the side where the off set bottom tube exits. I can only guess the oil was concentrating there causing it to degrade more quickly than else where.

 

The 22mm mesh was £3.99 for a single metre posted and there's easily enough for 2 x cap refills.

 

There's complete replacement caps available for £15.00'ish each so it's a bit of a saving to refill rather than replace.

 

 

The tower mesh was £12.00 for 6 metres, also posted... It'll take about 60cm per refill so again works out much cheaper at £1.20 a time... bit of a difference to buying the whole thing new at anything between £38 - £50+ a pop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by bacardincoke

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Stainless steel pan scourers work a treat.

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

1 hour ago, Tom Fenton said:

Stainless steel pan scourers work a treat.

Thats what I used

[bacardincoke 42 1 Cars]

The 50mm mesh arrived today...

 

When ordering I was asked if I wanted it corrugated or not, so went for having it done... probably worth while as it keeps the mesh better spaced when rolled up.

 

It's identical to the original stuff, obviously what's used by Peugeot.

 

It's dirt cheap, the proper stuff and simple to replace. If you're minded it could be a regular service item like any other.

 

I'd recommend people checking their caps / towers... my mesh looked fine until taken out and the consequences of pieces of metal dropping into the engine doesn't bear thinking about specially when it's cheaply and easily avoided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

Looks good but steel scourer really does work a treat and I can just buy it from tesco