Actually there is nothing in the separator to break. I cut mine apart after I replaced it and there is nothing to it. The moisture seems to freeze inside of it and or the hoses and impedes the proper flow sending the oil in the wrong direction. In some cases it can cause enough oil back into the intake and into the engine to cause hyro locking. Needless to say not a good thing. Fortunately when mine froze one of the hoses was mushy enough that the pressure blew the hose before a whole lot of oil made it back into my intake. But before that happened it blew out my valve cover gaskets, which I believe I heard a day or two before on start up. I wouldn't recommend driving it until it was diagnosed because you obviously have a problem somewhere.