What is the significants, if any, of an oil bath air filter/cleaner? Was this simply the technology at the time or does it actually serve a purpose that a regular air cleaner does not? Is this type of system necessary or can it be replaced with a regular air cleaner type deal? Oil bath air cleaner stock on my 331 Cadillac. I had a compressor with similar filters and it's a mess. Also - there doesn't appear to be any type of oil filtration system on this motor - am I just missing it or ???? The repair manual is great but isn't really answering some questions. Thank you in advance.
I've been told that the oil bath system is better in theory than reality, but I'm certainly not an expert! As for the oil filter its on the drivers side in the ginormous cup that sits above the valve cover. I use a Hastings # 207 filter.
No oil filter, lousy air filter....that's how things were back then. The oils were lousy, and the machining on the parts was too. Engines didn't last too long. But hey, it's traditional....
I replaced the oil bath air cleaner with an after market one. Uses a regular paper filter. I believe that was the only technology at the time.
The oil bath will remove and RETAIN a lot of dirt without clogging up like a paper filter does. They are a necessity on a farm tractor, or a car that is used in extremely dusty conditions. When I was a kid we drove on 6 miles of dirt road to get to pavement. A lot of dirt got kicked up and without the oil bath paper filters would have been inadequate. When a paper filter gets clogged it knocks the hell out of fuel economy. In an oil bath if it should get full of dirt, the air simply byp***es and the dirt is ingested. I don't recall ever seeing one full of dirt, but that was because my dad made us clean them every month. I never measured the pile of dirt I got out of one but I'm betting when we cleaned our John Deere tractor (once a month) there would be a quart of dirt in the bottom of the filter housing. That was dirt that didn't get into the motor to wear the rings out.
That's what's getting me going back and forth -- keeping it the way it was meant to be or making it "easier" with the newer air cleaner, less mess, blah blah blah. It sure look cool with the old style air cleaner - -it's HUGE!
If you don't drive the car on dusty dirty roads all the time, you don't need to spend a lot of time cleaning out the oil bath filter. There's one on my son's truck, I think we've only messed with it once in 2 years. Although it was also quite traditional to remove the big oil bath air filter and put on a nice looking little filter that did a really lousy job (or none at all) of cleaning the air.
Actually, even on tractors and heavy equipment they were ****. Caterpillar estimated that the engine life tripled when they switched to dry air filters, not to mention all their engines picked up a few horsepower. I used to run old D8's with oil baths that I had to clean every damn day in dusty conditions, now with paper filters they will run 3-400 hours in the same conditions. Oil bath was the best they could come up with at the time, but were never very good technology.
I got the sort-of-in-between of the oil bath and newer paper filters on both my daily rides.... Oil Gauze filters. I can clean them and re-use them almost forever. They seem to work better than either of the other methods of air filtering.
****? Tripled? Tripled is a lot of motor life................... I don’t think the person that quoted that stat to you took into account that Cat has implemented a couple of hundred innovations for their motors over the last 20 years, many of which might contribute to extending motor life. Don’t know how they could pin that down, even with the creative accounting of Wall Street!
Well there's a big ol' EEEK! I live on a dirt road. This definitely will not be a daily driver but I plan on driving it at least twice a week if not more. I have about 1/4 mile to and from the pavement. Crikey! It's quite the dillema to decide. I'm all about checking and maintaining on a regular basis but I'd really like to preserve the motor in its current state without making anything worse. I would also like to drive it for a while without doing anything major. I have no smoke, no blow by to speak of and a small oil leak which looks like its coming from the drain plug. I think I'm ok for now with everything as it is --- even on the dirt road! I may just keep that old oil bath thing for a bit to see how things go -- if it ain't broke dont fix it right? You guys are so great - thanks for all the info -- input is always welcome.
We also live 1/4 mile of dirt away from pavement, it's not a big deal. Having to drive 10 miles a day on dirt would be a problem. And tractors and construction equipment run in heavy dust all day long...not at all comparable to cars.
Yeah, but we're not talking the last 20 years. Cat replaced oil bath with dry filters in the mid 50's. Tractors that had engine life spans of 4-5,000 hours started routinely making it to 20,000 hours with dry air filters. Virtually every piece of farm and construction machinery, truck, automobile, whatever built in the world today has a dry air filter.
I gutted mine on the 58 and put a paper filter inside of the housing and sealed it with weatherstrip tape. Still looks stock!
Look closely how the air enters the carb on the stocker. See how it travels down into the air horn gaining velocity ? That's done on purpose to help vaporize the fuel. The stocker uses 1/2 pint of oil, the other a $5 up element. Plus, the stocker looks like it belongs there on an otherwise stock engine.
I had an oil bath filter on my '86 GMC Suburban that I paid $10 for. If filled to the line, nothing filters better. Dirt gets trapped in the oil and the metal fibers. I never understood how any dirt could get past that. I was told Studebaker invented the paper air filter to make things easier, maintenance and installation. Usually things work worse when designed for laziness and saving a buck at the factory, right?
Dirt can go between the metal fibers, the openings between them are huge compared to the size of dirt particles. Paper filters have much smaller holes, so dirt can't get thru. Is it a big deal on a hot rod? no.
I always thought that the oil bath air filter would filter far better than the paper, but as a matter of convenience and ease of maintenance paper filters have been used to facilitate lazy people who can't clean out an oil bath.
I think I'm going to leave it "as is" for now. I can certainly see benefits - one of the certainly is NOT the mess - yuck! = thanks to all for the input. My number one priority right now is those hydro electric windows that are not working -- need the sending unit/pump main "dude" from under the hood which is mysteriously missing! I have pulled one of the door panels - that spring that is part of the up and down of the window mechanism is WICKED! Sheesh! Why that incredible torque? That thing is HUGE! I mean it's only a piece of gl*** that goes up and down -- I had a really strong guy try to compress that spring and couldn't do it... what is up with that?
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