Cleaning your DPF filters yourself

This documentary is eye opening.

 

I read that DPFs are coated with some chemical layers ( or contains it in material) could wash one of the layers that should be reacting with NOx at high temperature and you'll have NOx sensor faults after .My dpf collapsed inside after turbo bearing failed and got contaminated with half a gallon of oil, could be sensitive to moisture.

 

Taking it to car wash hoping to find a cheap solution is a little naive, no matter how you look at it.

 

NOx is converted in the SCR catalyst further down the exhaust stream. The DPF is solely to catch soot particulates and the convert them to less harmful gasses in the high heat environment.

 

yes. I have legal copy of DL software. the dealer will charge you $125 to reset ash accumulator value in ECM.

 

Cummins INSITE program on your laptop, and the latest version of the Cummins INLINE adaptor between your PC and diag port, and you can work all kinds of magic......and eff stuff up, too, if you're not careful.

If it's your truck, it might be a worthwhile investment. If you're a company driver, probably not.

I worked on transit buses at two different shops. One shop used to have us blow them out with compressed air, basically going airborne with all the crap the filter was supposed to keep out of the atmosphere in the first place.

Second shop had the "long bake" oven. Worked pretty good, but eventually the SCR unit itself gets clogged with gunk and has to be replaced. Also the DPF can have internal cracks you can't see, and that throws clogged DPF codes, too.

Of course, transit buses spend most of their service life at idle, or well below highway speed with constant starts and stops, which is the perfect recipe for effing up an aftertreatment system.

Just sharing what little I know ......

 

Sorry but that's kind of ... sort of wrong.

The filter only is there to capture the particles and hold them, they pass the rest of the fluids onto the other part of the system for processing. There is no conversion, the material used in the filter is there to capture and hold, not to convert.

I would never ever blow one of these out, they are nasty things and most people don't even get that they have to use more than a cheap dust mask to prevent breathing the crap in.

I had one of the donaldson's cleaning machines and oven from a fleet I bought. I and others here went through some of the training, thinking that it would be wise to do this in house but after we ran the numbers, it was easier to let someone else do that so we sold it all to someone down the road, and part of the deal is we get a little (60%) discount on cleaning our DPFs.

 

Guy I’m leased to came to the conclusion of just puttin in new units (not remanufactured). After a baked one goes south a month later you got another $4,000 bill anyways. Might as well just put the new one on from the get go?

I do notice dealers can’t seem to get the exhaust and filters back together? Always find a broken clamp or gasket pushed out after a trip to the dealer for after treatment repairs. Every single time!!!!