Loading…
5
I finally drove a car with an oil bath air cleaner and I get why old timers swear by them
Honestly I always figured oil bath air cleaners were just old tech that got replaced for a reason, like bias ply tires or points ignition. My neighbor picked up a 1952 Chevy 3100 last month and the 216 still had its original oil bath setup under the hood, and he let me help him service it in his garage off Powell Blvd here in Portland. I popped the top off expecting a nasty mess but the thing was pretty simple, you drain the old oil, wipe the pan, refill to the line with plain 30 weight, and dunk the mesh element back in. What got me was how much grit that oil had trapped, way more than I expected, and the intake tube above it was bone dry. We refilled it and took the truck out on a 40 mile loop and it ran the same as before, but knowing it was actually filtering right made me feel better about it. The old guy at the parts counter said he has run them for 50 years and never had an engine eat dirt. So now I am second guessing my urge to swap it for a paper element. Anyone here still running an oil bath on a driver, and do you actually keep up with the oil changes on it?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
the_spencer7d ago
Wait, the intake tube above it was bone dry? That surprises me because I would have guessed oil mist would work its way up in there over time. Then again, I guess that is the whole point of the design, the oil stays down in the pan where it belongs and the air just passes over it. Sounds like your neighbor got lucky finding one that was never swapped out.
4