Ok, the TEFBA filter seems to be attracting some attention, so I'll do my best to explain why I adopted it.
We rebuilt the engine "on the ground", and given that we were as careful as possible, and as clean as possible, there was still a niggling worry of flotsam being present.
**I never had the radiator professionally cleaned prior to its re-use as I wanted to see if I was going to have to get a different core etc as I'm running a bit of an unknown engine combination, so spending money on radiator reco's etc at that point seemed folly. As it turns out, the radiator is fine for my needs and is more than sufficient.
I had initially installed a reverse flush system as well, and we did use that on 2-3 occasions to completely rinse out the cooling/heating system with fresh water prior to actually firing up and running the engine. In so doing, we discovered a few large pieces of black silicon (no black silicon was used throughout the rebuild), the odd shard of gasket material, and a couple of small flakes of rust. More puzzling still was the discovery of a rather large piece of hard wood, which appeared to have impressions of metal casting stamped into it. No clue where that came from or why it was there.
After firing the engine to run in the camshaft etc, it was noted that the coarse screen TEFBA filter was catching still more debris, again black silicon/gasket material and 2 or 3 threads of cotton, these were almost probably from the rags we used to clean everything during the rebuild.
I reasoned that most of this debris was perhaps imprisoned within the radiator core, and when cold flushed, the bits were also cold and remained too hard to pass through the tubes, but upon being subjected to the heated water via running the engine, they probably became pliant/softened enough to pass through the tubes and were then passed on through to the TEFBA filter.
**Sediments are another worry, and as I just explained, when cold flushing a cooling system, often the sediments remain in the bottom tank and other areas and do not become mobile until heated. Hot flushing an engine is not a skill I'm familiar with.
**The TEFBA has a little sump thing on which the filter screen sits, and while some people think the little sump thing is there to catch the debris which falls off the screen when the engine is not running, I reason it's there to allow the periodical removal of sediment which has hit the screen and thus has accumulated below it.
I ran the coarse screen for a few weeks until it stopped catching large debris and then went to the fine mesh screen and repeated the process over again. Probably 2 or 3 more cleans and the fine mesh stopped catching stuff, but every now and then the odd little bit is found. Nothing to worry about I reckon.
I do periodically lift out the little sump thing and rinse off any sediment I find.
**Given that I run an electric water pump (Davies Craig), I have my cooling/heating system cycling more than it would if it was standard, even after I shut the engine down, the digital controller continues its safety thing and keeps cycling the coolant at intervals until the sensor accepts that it's done its job of safeguarding against hotspots etc. As such, I think this moderate and continual cycling of the coolant allows the TEFBA filter to be more effective as it would in a regular cooling system.
There are "socks" that can be fitted to the top radiator hose which may also work ok, but I've not tried one.
