The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 1951 Chevy 3100 heavy duty air cleaner

Drove the old girl home today, and have started fixing things that are wrong. I've been doing a lot of reading on the Stovebolt page, Gawd, this stuff is invaluable. Anyway - - -

This is a clean little truck with few ailments, and it has a decent operator's manual with it. It has what the manual describes as the "heavy duty air cleaner". It is supposed to be a oil bath air cleaner, and, of course, not only does it have no oil in it, but there are several holes in the bottom of the cleaner reservoir. Three of them are obviously pinholes or such, but one of them appears to be a 3/16" drilled hole.

My question: Is that one hole supposed to lubricate the felt washer underneath, or should I just go ahead and solder up everything so it doesn't leak and add a pint of 50w oil like the book sez?

Thanks
fredstev

There shouldn,t be any holes in the bottom. They have a tendency to get water inside which sets on the bottom & rusts through. 50 weight oil sounds pretty heavy. I used to service many of them back in the 50,s & always used 30 weight oil.

I soldered up the holes today and put a pint of 30 wt. oil in it. No leaks, and it actually quieted the intake noise a little.

Some of the guys with oil bath filters on their tractors use 30 wt. oil and add some STP - they claim that the extra stickiness helps pick up wheat dust better.

fredstev