I've been asked to share my method and photos for converting an Oil-Bath air cleaner to one that will accept a paper element. The air cleaner in these photos is from a 55 tudor Mainline that my dad recently sold. This is a VERY SIMPLE approach to this conversion and only takes a few minutes. Here it is: Step one: On the lid, cut away the housing that contains the mesh filter. Leave enough material (as shown in the photo) to create a seal on top of the paper element. It's important that you make this cut nice and straight.
Step two: Drill relatively large holes in the base of the air cleaner as shown in the photos, to allow for air flow. If you need more air flow....drill more holes.
Step Three: Drill holes in the bottom of the base to allow air to enter the housing....again....more holes = more air flow.
Step Four: Take the base to the local parts house and test fit various paper elements until you find one that pretty much fits the diameter of the housing as well as the general height of the housing. Measurements for this element are shown for anyone who has a 55 Ford.
Step Five: You're all done. Set the lid on top of the paper element and as long as the cut you made on the lid is nice and straight, it will dig into the rubber of the element a little bit when you tighten it down and you'll have a good airtight seal. The air will flow in from the top a little bit, but most of it will travel into the housing of the unit and out of the holes on the inside. When you open the hood, it'll look stock unless someone really gets close to it.
Note: This coversion is for someone wanting to keep the stock carb. The conversion I did on my 54 Ford oil bath (see my build thread) was different because I wanted to mount it to a 4 bbl carburetor.
I did this for the air cleaner in my econoline. worked out great and kept that stock look and pretty much had the same exact steps you had here. Only caution that I would give is not to drill the holes until you know exactly where the filter is going to sit.
I'm concerned, my air cleaner for the 239 O/H valve V8 has 3 holes that come in the bore of the center tube of the bottom section. I can't tell by the pictures if this one has them for the 6 cyl. but I'm sure it does. The way I see it, this will allow the air flow to bypass the paper filter, correct? Maybe I'm missing something here.
I don't remember there being any holes that would bypass the filter on this conversion. If there were though, the quick answer would be to simply block them off. There'd be several ways to do so....one quickie that comes to mind would be to JB Weld some little metal patches over the holes. It's not going to be seen, so you wouldn't have to worry about it being perfect.
There's a new thread on Oil Bath to Paper conversions titled "How to convert your 8BA oil bath air filter to paper/dry type" and posted by IowaMercMan. RustyFords method is simpler. So easy a Caveman can do it.
Good morning rustyfords, I know this is a long shot due to the post being a bit old. I was curious if you had the part number for the filter you have? I have done the conversion on a 50's oil bath up to the point of getting a filter. Was just hoping that you might know. If not I can measure mine and go with that, but thought i would just ask first. Thank you. Matt
Use this link, https://wixfilters.com/Lookup/FilterBySize.aspx to find filters by size. Then double check the size for CFM rating, you sure don't want a lawn mower filter on a V8.
I used to work on farm tractors and watched 4020 John Deere engine life triple when they went from oil bath to paper filters.
Thank you sunbeam, That is good info. I am really wanting to just make it easier to keep the look, but cleaner operations for me
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