The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Paper elements in older air cleaners

I have a aircleaner from a 40s or early 50s 216 that is not a oil bath and has a removable horse hair looking filter,has anyone put a modern filter in those older air cleaners. Yhe filter is mall and I will most likely take it to the small engine shop near by and see if I can find a filter that will work. Jeff

I have, NAPA had one that fit perfect.

Grigg

I use a paper element made for a GM V6 of the late eighties. My unit is the big oil bath type so I had to modify it a bit.

I took the wire mesh canister out of my old bath filter and replaced it with a Wix paper filter (after removing the oil of course). We had to do some hunting to find one the correct size but it's doable.

The problem you have to watch out for is the air restriction of a paper style filter in an oil bath filter. The size and the shape of the oil bath filter was designed for a different filtering system, basicly no filter and the oil pool. By using a paper filter, you can create air restrictions and consequently the engine becomes somewhat choked down causing poor milage and unnecessary fuel comsumption. The same care should be taken using a paper filter instead of the factor type filter of the wire mesh and filter material. These filters are engineered and designed to work for certain situations. If any filter worked on any engine, there wouldn't be a kazillion different filters. Each has it's specific purpose for a specific intake and carb system with air and gas intake measured by the make up of the filter. A small engine filter has no place on your 216-235-261. Be careful!
Joe

Jeff, are you referring to an air cleaner that looks like like the filter at the upper left of this picture?

People seem to be giving you information about oil bath air cleaners - but, you are not referring to an oil bath air cleaner?

Thats the air cleaner I have. Jeff

My comments were directed at both Tiny and Jeff regarding the use of filters that are more dense than the original style filters thus causing a slight amount of choking to the engine at all times. This is something that Tom Langdon pointed out some years back when fitting stock carbs with "after market" type air filters.
Here's what happens - when you tune your carbs you tune them with no air filter on them. If you put an incorrect or too dense of a filter on them after they are tuned, you,in effect, de-tune them and are driving around with a totally incorrect intake set up. Pretty simple to understand. With these engines, every little bit needs attention and needs to be right.
Joe

OK.....my uncle says that the picture of the air cleaner that tclederman linked to can use a paper filter that can be purchased at Jim carters or Napa and that it will and does work fine. ALSO...when I got "our" truck it had an oil bath filter on top of the Rod B carb he took it off and gave me the type of filter that tc linked to (upper left of the picture) WHY? HE, says that most of the problems that we have heard about the Rod B's are due to the oil bath type filter being too heavy and unbalanced when filled wtih oil thus causing the carb to warp and crack and he says that it was a problem from the first day they came out. He has always run with the type of filter so noted and calls the other types an abomonation and a boat anchor and (my favorite) a misery to mankind and all of God's animals....how do you really feel UNK don't hold back!(;>) T/C Steve

I can't find a picture of mine, but it use to have the screen and brown harry stuff in it, I replaced it with a proper fitting paper filter from NAPA.
It did not affect the adjustements of the carb enough to even notice, much less require a change.

Give it a try, you'll know soon enough if it flows enough air.

Grigg

Jeff,

If your air cleaner is like the one on the upper left of the page at my link above, Jim Carter sells a beautiful match to the original spark arrestor air cleaner. He also sells a paper element replacement (but you could probably find that locally).

By the way, I doubt very much that the weight of oil bath air cleaners is the reason so many Rochester carbs warped and leaked (but, that's a good story).

Tim

I'll agree with that. Mine had that type filter on it, and the Rochester under it was warped and cracked. To be honest, I've seen more warped and/or cracked Rochesters than good ones.
Personally, I'm running K&Ns on mine, not in stock housings, but in housings of a similar size.

I posted pictures in my album of a filter that I used; http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2232682370098611668LARbzY This is a CarQuest #CSI 87373 filter that I’ve been running on my stock 1950, 216 with a Rochester ‘B’. It is a little bit taller than the wire mesh that it replaced which requires that the 10-32 stud be about an 1/8” longer. CarQuest told me that one of the applications was for a John Deere tractor, which would be a much smaller displacement engine. I have had no problems with air flow in the 3000 miles that I’ve had it on the engine and if it were restricting the air flow it would have presented an over rich condition similar to having the choke pulled out. With in the past couple of months I’ve restored an original oil bath air cleaner of the proper vintage and have driven it for several hundred miles and have noticed no difference in the performance nor fuel mileage.
The paper filter that Tim linked to from JC is only $7.13. I’m sure that the CarQuest filter I used was more than that the one from JC might not need to have the stud extended.

Steve the problem with the Rochester ‘B’ carburetors leaking is caused by the Zinc alloy that was used in the castings. The condition is known in the casting industry as “Zinc Creep” and is caused by a granular separation at a molecular level. The problem was recognized early on by the engineers, which is evidenced by the fact that the air horn was continuously strengthened or the flange thickness increased over the more than a decade run that they used this design.
Many of the later Rochester “B” carbs had much heavier air cleaners on them and they had much less problem with leakage. Another problem area for leakage was the rather skimpy 1/4” NPT fuel inlet, which was often over tighten by people thinking that was the source of the leaking fuel. This resulted in the thread being deformed to the point that they would not seal anymore and in many cases where the tapered brass fitting bottomed out. This was also redesigned and beefed up on the later Rochester ‘B’ carbs.
If you look at the type of warpage that is seen in the air horn and bowl of the Rochester ‘B’ carbs, especially through the early part of the 50’s, you can plainly see that access weight from an air cleaner could not have caused it. Got to agree with ya Tim, this and other myths are simply unscientific and just that, myths.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL