Would someone please be able to explain to me the basics of what the breather system does, the basic layout of it, and what the benefits are.

I have one fitted to my escos from when i bought it, and someone asked me what it was and what it did whilst looking under the bonnet and then realised that i couldnt really tell them much at all apart from what it is.

 

It helps your car breathe.

HTH - Benni.

 

When your engine is running massive pressures build up inside the combustion chamber (this is the camber between the top of the piston and the head where the spark happens) as a result, some of this pressure gets past the piston rings and down into the crankcase (the bottom of the engine)
This pressure is bad, it can push oil up past the rings on the engine as its breathing in on each cylinder, to get rid of it you need the engine to be able to breathe out to atmosphere, when it does so though, it breathes a mixture of oil and air, what you need to do is catch the oil and return it to the sump, and let the air out.

Massively over simplified, but thats the short answer basically.

 

Nice one mate. Cheers. Its one of those things that ive always known what it is, but not known exactly how it actually works.