The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Oil bath air cleaner

How the heck does an oil bath aircleaner work?
I assume the air does not pass through the oil.
If that's true, what is the purpose of the oil?

The bottom of the element is in contact with the oil, which wicks its way up and saturates the element. It is extremely effective for filtering small particles as they stick to the oil soaked element. The gunk will also run down the element and settle in the bottom of the pan. In Wyoming, where it is very dusty, you won't find a farmer who doesn't have them on their old trucks or tractors. BTW, I've been told that the straw-like looking element in my filter could be hair from the mane of a horse. I've never verified if that is true.

check this thread Jim , tclederman explains it well

some older air cleaners did use horse hair medium, but also a shredded steel material like coarse steel wool or a non-wood excelsior material

Bill

Another reason I believe an oil bath is superior. Either that, or a comapatible, reuseable K & N filter. Once you have it, you don't have to buy or dispose of parts other than about a pint or less of oil. Think of how many oil saturated metal/paper/rubber air filters are in the landfills. Not to mention the manufacturing invloved and the packaging. I don't mean to sound like a ranting treehugger, but the consume less/reuse philosophy makes sense to me.

Jim Bow,

I don't know what Tim's link shows, but basically as the air comes roaring in through the inlet side of the air cleaner it travels down a passage and is required to make a 180&deg turn. The air makes the turn but the dust particles don't and are flung into Lake-o-Lube and trapped for life.

I haven't done extensive research on this subject so I might be in very deep sh#t with Mr. Lederman...but I have serviced hundreds of these units when I was shop flunky...work experience...does that count!

Stuart

http://www.ytmag.com/articles/artint6.htm

http://www.roadkill.com/~davet/moto/air.filters.html

http://www.stovebolt.com/bboard/cgi-bin//ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=002790#000000

Also keep into consideration that alot of older inlines did not have any provision for an oil filter and if you were lucky you had a bypass filter. The oil bath breather helped by keeping trash out of your engine.

I think 99% of all motor oil contaminants are the byproduct of combustion and driving style, and are created from 'within'. Operating in a dusty or dirty environment might affect the oil cleanliness, but not to a great degree...air cleaner or otherwise. Premature cylinder wear is usually associated with poor incoming air filtration.

Not too many bugs make it through the firestorm inside the cylinder to be deposited into the crankcase. Does this sound reasonable!

Stuart

I have used up the rings in a short time as the result of not using an air cleaner. Now I will hardly even start an engine without an air cleaner.

If only the oil bath filter looked as cool as my paper filter!!!