Oil bath air canister

[S.Hess]

I was wondering if anyone here has
ever converted an old oil bath air
canister over to one that you can
use a fiber filter with instead?
One of the projects that I am
going to do to my 350u down the
road is to convert the air intake
from an oil bath to a regular
filter. I would like to reuse the
original canister to do so, and am
wondering if some one who has
already done so willing to share
what they did in order to make it
work? Thanks Hess

 

[Janicholson]

You can do that. It takes drilling spot welds, removing all but the intake pipe, fabricating some parts and fastening the filter attached hanging down from that intake pipe. The filter would operate inside out (dirt on the inside, clean on the outside), because air flows that way. into and out of the chamber. A different way would be to gut the entire cylinder and make a 90 degree fitting on the outlet to the carb. inside the body. Remove all inside the part of the intake pipe, Put the filter on the 90 elbow, and it is now right side out.
But those oil bath filters work very well, why mess with it. Change the oil every day if you are eating dust, or rag weed pollen. Jim

 

[old]

I agree and old old bath filter work far better then any paper filter ever will

 

[S.Hess]

Here in the high sage desert dust is just a way of life. Come June if a wet year any soul that has been disturbed in the least turns to moon dust. This July I was running an open cab mini ex on the property and a couple of times couldn't see the boom. I grew up in the Midwest where it is no where near as dusty, I would run into dirt damage in the heads and cylinder walls of the old MHs and Farmalls we ran from dust. Yes the oil bath is great compared to no filter system, however I disagree with the claim they work well. I was thinking of putting a 90 inside the canister from the carb side, cutting down the inlet pipe from up top to flush so it would flow around the filter like a normal air box. I think this would have the added benefit of holding heavier dirt in the bottom of the canister where I can remove it and dump it at the end of the day. I've included a picture of how deep and fine the dust gets, note that is not my property nor did I take that picture.

 

[fastfarmall]

The only thing i would add, is if your going threw that work, try to make with a small safety filter on the inside of the big air filter,like the 856 had, V the 806, [which i did] if you got that much dust to deal with, just a sniff when you take the paper element out, gets on the inside of the canister, trouble ahead! I had a PTO combine i pulled with my 806,cleaning a air filter in the field every morning is a recipe for disaster i thought! But never had to overhual it yet!

 

[DR. EVIL]

I've been researching this same idea almost 50 years now. The airflow thru an oil bath is completely different than a dry pleated paper filter. Oil bath uses airflow to carry oil upwards and gravity to work against the airflow to return oil & dirt to the bottom of the filter. This requires the oil bath filter to be mounted HORIZONTALLY, for proper operation. A dry pleated paper filter can be mounted any which way, gravity isn't part of the process.
Oil bath air cleaners is 1910-1920 technology, WATER BATH air cleaners preceded oil bath air cleaners. Back when Horse power meant a 4-legged animal. Most engines run in dirty conditions required rebuilding at 1000 to 2000 hours with oil bath air cleaners. Today's engines with dry pleated paper air and oil filtration can run 10,000 hours or more, even 20,000 hours is typical in some applications. Even my Cub Cadet zero turn mower with 27 hp Kawasaki V-twin engine has a 2-stage dry pleated paper air filter, filter inside a filter. Dry pleated paper filters are a product of the 1960's, IBM computers, NASA and the Moon landings, Interstate highways verses dirt roads.
The airflow thru the dry type filter is from the outside to the inside, helps the filter clean the air better, the airflow thru the oil bath depends entirely on the dust/dirt bouncing into some of the oil coated steel filter/cleaning mesh. But when the oil all drains off when engine isn't running you have NO air filtering when restarted.
I researched the filtering ability of major commercially available dry pleated paper air filters verses oil bath air cleaners. Typical cleaning efficiency of dry types were 99.5%-99.9%. Only oil bath filter I could find ANY info on was VORTOX brand, typically seen hanging on the sides of hoods of Kenworth or Peterbuit semmi-tractors, they claim 95%-98%.
I can't think of ANYTHING that comes stock with an oil bath air cleaner anymore. Many people are huge fans of K&N oiled cotton lint air filters, I ran one on my diesel pickup for 70,000 miles, stock replacement drop-in filter, my oil analysis showed .05ppm to .1ppm silicon content in my used oil analysis after 3000 miles of highway driving. With the Motorcraft stock pleated filter it was .01ppm or .02ppm after similar 3000 miles. THAT silicon was DIRT getting thru the K&N air filter! You hold the filter up to a brite light you can see THOUSANDS of points of light thru the filter, HOLES letting dirt into your engine.
I'd look at a tractor salvage yard for a newer vintage IH tractor with a complete dry type air cleaner Something like a 404, 504, 544, 454, etc. And plan on mounting it horizontally instead of vertically. I've heard of oil bath air cleaners plugging up and not flowing enough air for some tractors. I don't think that's even possible with a dry type filter.
M&W Gear made a Add-Power Air Cleaner back in the 1950's & '60's, I admit I've never seen one up close but it completely replaces the oil bath filter with a curved large diameter pipe from about a foot above the hood down under the hood thru the stock hole in the hood and curves forward to the carb. A readily available pleated paper air filter element mounted on top of the tube. Summit Racing sells chrome air filters and foam wraps that would really improve the time between filter cleanings.
The science of testing air and oil filters is a really complex science. Amount and size of the dirt particles all matter, even if they have an electrical charge and are attracted to the filter media.

I remember harrowing in 20 acres of oats one morning with my Super H, slight breeze out of the south, ground was year old corn ground that had been disked twice, and I'm pulling Dad's new 24 ft Kewanee peg tooth harrow north & south in 4th gear, 6-1/2 mph, the dust was no problem going south into the wind, going north with the wind the dust would settle on the hood, grill, & gas tank and turn the tractor BROWN. If I stood up My head was above the dust, but the air inlet was taking in really big gulps of really fine particles of abrasive dust 50% of the time. I even got a little bit of dust in the bottom of the Donaldson Pre-cleaner during that hour or so of run time.

 

[Roger Tomfohrde]

Not sure if your tractor is equipped with the air intake above the hood or under the sheet metal like my 300U. But if it is above the hood I have seen pictures of someone adding a old car engine air cleaner using a plate so it filters before it gets to the oil bath and leave the oil bath in place. That way you are removing most of the dust before the oil bath and it is a low profile. I have also seen like the corn picker days, an extension raising it considerably higher but it does get into the way of vision. I added a paper style filter to a 560 and it stuck off the side a huge amount. Most of the M+W on a 560 were mounted above, look for pics, maybe that is what you want to do.

 

[Fritz Maurer]

Interesting idea, never tried it. One way would be completely gut the housing and the oil cup. Then take it to NAPA ( or nowadays they might have filters listed by dimension online) and find the biggest filter that will fit in that housing, that is short enough to reinstall the oil cup. You may have to shorten the center tube depending on how long the filter is. You will need to fab a plate with a soft gasket to close off the bolt end of the filter. Then you can either use a spring or spacers in the oil cup to hold the open end of the filter against the top of the housing. If you have the facilities, you could also weld a cross bar near the end of the center tube and have a stud sticking out to attach the element in the conventional manner. The element thus installed will have the airflow from the inside out. Other words the dirt will be on the inside.

 

[S.Hess]

I can't agree more about the K-N filters and ones like it. When I bought my 94 che y 2500 with a 6.5 TD it came with a banks filter. Yeah it is a quick HP upgrade, but it allows more finer diet to get through. The first thing that dirt gets to is the turbo, and that is not something you want sucking in dirt. Due to the high amounts of fine dust we have out here I quickly replaced that with a.simple wix filter that doesn't have the larger holes you pointed out.

 

[AlinMO]

The heck with the tractor, what do you do to protect yourself from this dust?
Man that stuff looks terrible! Dust really tears me up anymore. The older I get, the worse it is. I think I would move.

 

[Whiskey Bent]

I like Rogers idea filter it twice and would be easy to mount and clean it!

 

[Jim Becker]

Several random comments:

- Percentage cleaning ability of any filter isn't particularly meaningful without considering the particle sizes being filtered/measured.

- Among the ones I am familiar with, the "heavy duty" or "desert" filter options in automobiles added an oil bath filter ahead of the dry filter. These were factory installed regular production options on Chevrolets in the 1960s. Oil bath first seems like the proper order.

- Part of the filtering action of an oil bath is that centrifugal force throws particles into the oil as the air changes direction from down to up at the bottom of the unit.

- I have seen a paper filter so clogged that it stalled the engine.

- I assume a major reason for the change to paper filters is that nobody wants to go to the trouble of servicing an oil bath unit. It is quicker to slap in a new element.

 

[S.Hess]

Close my eyes and mouth when
a.breeze picks up, and try and
work on a cross wind direction.
Can't always be done, and you get
a ton in your eyes, eyes nose, and
mouth. Not a lot of fun. I was
planning on putting a seal canopy
on the machine, but since dad's
going to hopefully use this to
plow the half mile of drive in
winter I was thinking a glass cab
w electric heat. But in summer you
don't want a cab unless it has a
due to how often we are above 100.
Running an AC unit on this machine
would take way more electrical
knowledge than I currently have.
It is a very harsh, but
beautifully land out here.

<img
src=https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto98212.jpg>

 

[DanMD]

(quoted from post at 15:41:56 08/20/21) Not sure if your tractor is equipped with the air intake above the hood or under the sheet metal like my 300U. But if it is above the hood I have seen pictures of someone adding a old car engine air cleaner using a plate so it filters before it gets to the oil bath and leave the oil bath in place. That way you are removing most of the dust before the oil bath and it is a low profile. I have also seen like the corn picker days, an extension raising it considerably higher but it does get into the way of vision. I added a paper style filter to a 560 and it stuck off the side a huge amount. Most of the M+W on a 560 were mounted above, look for pics, maybe that is what you want to do.

I kicked this idea around a few years ago and reading your post got me to give it a try. This is what I came up with for a trial.