Hi everybody,

doing sandcast restoration for now over 4 years I want to inform all sandcast owners about my recent progress in the reproduction of the original round sandcast oil filter housing.
As you all well know the oil filter housing topic is most important when it comes to sandcast restoration...

Of course I was also very disappointed about the general situation when it came to this topic.
Most of the original filter housing were slaughtered by HONDA during the first inspection due to the recall.
But also many original filter housing were just destroyed by the owners/technicians when changing the filter element and giving to much torque when placing it back again.

So definitely we need to use/work on replicas to have a 100% 'original' restored sandcast becasue the finned housing is truely no option!!!
The replicas available on the market are round but not really a good solution when you own an original one and/or do know how the original should look like.
Also the simple solution to take a finned oil filter housing and to cut off the finns is not really a workable solution - even it is the most easiest one.

Just by accident and becasue of another project I learned about a method how to make perfect sandcast replicas.
So, I just want to let you know that I succeeded to rebuild a nearly 100% perfect replica of the original round shaped sandcast oil
I was lucky enough to own one original oil filter housing and I started to work on a perfect replica based on that original part.
So far what I did:
1)       Using the original oil filter housing I prepard a sandcast mold for reproduction – done!
2)       I performed a sandcast process with the sandcast mold using 223-Al alloy – done
3)       I went to a toolshop to lathe face the replica sandcast oil filter housing to exactly the original oil filter housing dimensions - done.

I started to produce a first series of about 4 replica oil filter housing with very good result!
The replica is nearly 100% exact to the original.
The weight of the replica and the model is comparable.
The aluminium used is very durable and the part can be used  without any issues.

The only difference is that during the sandcast process the replica shrinks about 1-2% in dimension so the replica is slightly smaller compared to the original but this does not interfere with the requested functionality!!

Never the less the oil filter fits perfectly into the housing and also all others measures are perfectly matching!
Again it is 100% functional as it should be!

IMPORTANT
I’m right now considering a new 2nd production of replicas and I just thought it might be a good idea to ask you and the only sandcast forum whether or not other fellow sandcast restorer would be interested in the replica oil filter housing?! In this case I would be ready to increase the number of replicas to produce according to the number of interest?!

I can tell you that the cost of one replica would be around 200-220US$ plus shipping – so I believe for 250US$ I could offer such perfect replicas. The final price will depend on the manufacturing cost of the different steps...

Anybody who is interested please inform me in return untill end of March!

What you see in the attached pictures are different replicas.
IMG_3219: 3 of my replicas which I offered one time in ebay!
IMG_3266: comparisson of Yamiya replica and that what I did.
IMG_3267: comparisson of Yamiya replica and that what I did.