Am I a victim of foul play or incompetence? LOL.

[Powerlinefixer]

To answer your question, it is incompetence.

This was confirmed today. I changed the fuel/water separator on the other unit. It spun right off, no issues. The gasket had been oiled.

 

[Bob USNR]

Well, it did eventually come off with use of a persuader.

Unless I were to have some kind of filter that had specific instructions to NOT lube the gasket (pre lubed with grease or whatever), I always dip a finger in oil and lube the gasket.

So, it appears you're a lineman. What utility you with? We are on Lane Electric and I thought with the big rain and windstorm the other night we were going to lose utility power but we didn't. Though a friend a few miles away did lose power and it wasn't restored until morning. Of course, I had all my gensets prepped and ready for "lights out" but not even a power flicker here!

After 50+ years installing those filters I remember the instructions were Oil the gasket and spin on until the gasket touches the seal surface and turn it another 1/4-1/2 more.
Those instructions used to be written on the filter itself.
The oil filter wrench is a remove only tool.
I once had an astonishingly difficult time removing a filter.
After 15 minutes chiseling the body of the filter off I could get to the top plate and-
A 3ft chisel and a 6lb hammer and 30 minutes later I finally got it off without damaging the mount.
I had my fingers crossed the mount would not break off the whole time.

 

[msgjd]

Bought an old 3/4-yard excavator and went to change the hyd filter , the can was about 10 inches across.. It wouldn't budge and a visegrip-type chain wrench i had at the time wasn't long enough.

Using a small chisel and hammer at its thick rolled lip was not working, and impaling it to twist it with an old car tire iron only began to mangle it.. There was plenty of sacrilegious language at this point !

I grabbed a 4" canvas ratchet strap and bound it up tight near the base until it started to crush the can slightly "square" along the flat face of the ratchet assy .. Then i slid a 3ft bar into a good spot in the ratchet handle.. I didn't think it was gonna work because i kept gradually increasing torque and it still wouldn't budge.. But when i got to maybe 100# torque and just held it there about 10 seconds, the bar started to move.. i thought the strap was slipping, but no, i could see the rolled lip barely moving so i held the torque until it was happy.. I couldn't tell whether the gasket had been pre-lubed because some oil flooded out as it unscrewed, but i did notice the outside edge of the gasket was cracked and dry-rotted, so my money is on choice C, "nobody lubed the gasket"

Let's just say times like this are when I am thankful most of the "antiques" I bought over the decades came with cartridge filters, not spin-on.. BUT i prefer spin-on's only when they behave and spin off !!!