Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Need help with oil bath air filter on Ford F100 1955

[Les Thompson (les21]

Britt,

We used to just dip the mesh portion of the filter in a bucket of solvent and slosh it around a bit, let drain thoroughly, then hit with a blast from an air nozzle to blow the rest of the solvent out.

Clean the base (this is where the sludge collects), wipe dry and refill with just about any weight non-detergent oil. There is usually an embossed fill level line in the lower half. The non-detergent lets the particles settle out.

This from Wikipedia is pretty good as far as how they work:

Oil bath

An oil bath air cleaner consists of a sump containing a pool of oil, and an insert which is filled with fibre, mesh, foam, or another coarse filter media. When the cleaner is assembled, the media-containing body of the insert sits a short distance above the surface of the oil pool. The rim of the insert overlaps the rim of the sump. This arrangement forms a labyrinthine path through which the air must travel in a series of U-turns: up through the gap between the rims of the insert and the sump, down through the gap between the outer wall of the insert and the inner wall of the sump, and up through the filter media in the body of the insert. This U-turn takes the air at high velocity across the surface of the oil pool. Larger and heavier dust and dirt particles in the air cannot make the turn due to their inertia, so they fall into the oil and settle to the bottom of the base bowl. Lighter and smaller particles are trapped by the filtration media in the insert, which is wetted by oil droplets aspirated there into by normal airflow.

Oil bath air cleaners were very widely used in automotive and small engine applications until the widespread industry adoption of the paper filter in the early 1960s. Such cleaners are still used in off-road equipment where very high levels of dust are encountered, for oil bath air cleaners can sequester a great deal of dirt relative to their overall size without loss of filtration efficiency or airflow. However, the liquid oil makes cleaning and servicing such air cleaners messy and inconvenient, they must be relatively large to avoid excessive restriction at high airflow rates, and they tend to increase exhaust emissions of unburned hydrocarbons due to oil aspiration when used on spark-ignition engines.

As far as the oil sloshing out, unless you roll it over, will probably never be a problem in most trucks or cars. Now back in the sixties when I was autocrossing my MGTD, it would slosh the oil out over the sides of the reservoir. Adapted a dry paper filter to stop that problem

Oil for the engine, just a good quality oil with some ZDDP additive or a specialized classic oil blended for older cars. New cars with roller cams don't have a problem, but the classics with flat tappets can wear a cam out in pretty short order. Lots of horror stories online. Google ZDDP issues. 

Here's one website: http://classiccars.about.com/od/maintenancetips/a/Zddp-Debunking-The-Urban-Legend-This-Motor-Oil-Additive.htm

Hope this helps.

Les T.

-----Original Message----- From: Britt2Asa via Ferrari <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com> Sent: May 5, 2015 2:55 PM To: Les Thompson <les21 [at] ix.netcom.com> Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com> Subject: [Ferrari] Need help with oil bath air filter on Ford F100 1955 

Hi guys, 

Need some help. I have a 1955 Ford F100 with a Y block V8 and an oil bath air filter. Original engine and set up.  I am readying the truck for sale after a long time in storage. 

How does an oil bath filter work? I see steel mesh trapped in the top of the lid. I see a big donut shaped bowl surrounding the carb. 

1. How do I clean the mesh which is welded into the lid? 

2. What oil do I use? 

3. Assuming it goes in the donut ring how much, what type of oil, what keeps it from sloshing in the open mouth of the car on corners or on a hill and what is the purpose of the oil? 

4. Truck runs fine with no oil in the air filter but I know something should go in it and the shop manual doesn't mention anything at all about the air filter. I just don't know much about old American trucks even though I was born there! 

5. Last question, any advice on type and weight of oil to use in the engine? I read somewhere to use diesel oil on these old Ford V8s because of the additives they have...? 

I know a lot about Ferraris and Alfas but little about this old hunk of American steel so hoping somebody on the list knows how this works? 

Really appreciate it. 

Britt in the UK 

Sent from my iPad 

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