The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Upgrade air filter for rochester

Does anyone have any suggestions on a replacement/upgrade air filter to fit the rochester carb? It has the oil fed filter on it now. Is there a benefit to keeping the old style filter on there? It seems like it would get more flow with a newer style filter. At my auto parts store the edelbrock and similar filters at sized to fit larger carbs.

Some people modify the oil bath filter to accept a paper element, but if you keep the original filter clean and properly maintained, it's what the engine was designed to use. Why would it be necessary to flow more air?
Jerry

Truer words could not be posted. Fill with 50W oil to the marked level. It could not be any siimpler, any less expensive, and any cleaner.

Ok, cool. I wasn't sure if something new would be beneficial. Should I take apart the old filter? Is there a cleaning procedure? I am not at all familiar with it. Thanks guys.

I removed my oil bath and installed a air filter. Its been descussed a million times. Air filters are cleaner but oil bath is old school. When it comes down to it, just use what you want. If you want more info on one over the other IM me and ill tell you. Good luck

Right back to the same old story which is repeated a hundred times a year. These old Stovebolt’s have survived leaded gas, dirt and gravel roads, sitting out behind the barn or in a field for decades, being the subject to millions of young people learning to drive in them, having been driving by old broken down demented dirt farmers, over loaded and worked to death. They ran on five year old gas in their tanks, and old drain oil from the Farmall or what ever was setting around the garage at the time, many lost their air filter after the second winter and 95% of them never saw an oil filter and those that did very rarely had it changed because it was such a pain in the ars.
But somehow they survived it all for 50, 60 or 70 years just the way they came from the factory so why does everyone want to re-engineer these trucks?????
Properly restored an Advance Design Chevy truck is gonna outlast any one of us that post to this here forum!
Of course as Grandpa posted, "when it comes right down to it, just use what you want." after all, millions of people did before you and hundreds of thousands of the Stovebolt’s are still running.

But now that I’ve got that off my chest, to answer your original question Father Neptune, the only way to put a new air filter element in to the original “Oil Bath” style air filter is to hack it up which just leaves one less original “Oil Bath” air filter in the world and makes my original “Oil Bath” air filter worth that much more.
Or……. If you have the spark arrestor silencer type very often the original mesh is falling apart and the reproduction ones are somewhat expensive. Here you can use something like a Car Quest #87373 dry paper filter as a replacement for the mesh. This doesn’t destroy the original air filter housing and if you ever want to spend the cash and restore it using the original style wire mesh element you can.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I agree with the idea that "its lasted this long so why fix something that isn't broken."

However, what I do to my truck today exceeds what it was originally designed for. My 51 was not designed to drive down the interstate at 65-70 mph all day long, which I do.

Given that idea, when I install my PCV system on by dual carb setup, I plan to use the original style air filter. Should I convert to paper filters?

Neptune Green, seeing that you live in Rosamond sure brings back a lot of great memories for me. I was an AMA District 37 desert racer from 1968 through 2001 and drove by Rosamond hundreds of times on the way to and from the races. The California desert is a great place!

With regard to improving the breathing on your truck, the negative comments you got do not match my experiences. It's amazing how some people cling to the past with a death grip rather than try something new.

I modified the air intakes on both my '36 Chevy pickup and '71 Dodge van that I bought new and still have.

On the '36 there is a pancake looking air cleaner that originally had a metal mesh "filter". There is no way that coarse metal mesh can exclude fine dust that would act as a grinding compound inside the engine. I found a NAPA pleated paper air filter element that was a direct replacement for the metal mesh.

Oil bath air filters work by slamming the air flow against the oil embedding the dirt in the oil and causing the air flow to reverse direction. That's about as far from efficient laminar air flow as you can possibly get and does clean the air but also gives the engine asthma. Eliminating turbulent flow in favor of laminar flow improves performance. No matter how primitive an engine is, if it can breathe easier it can't help but run better.

How do I know that improving air flow into a stock engine improves performance? It's from Desert racing again. To get to the races in Lucerne Valley I used to drive my van over Cajon Pass, elevation about 4200 feet. The last few miles approaching the pass from the south are really steep and the van had to work hard hauling my family and the race bikes and pulling our little travel trailer, especially if there was a head wind.

As an experiment, I built a fresh air intake that picked up cooler air in front of the radiator and ducted it to the air cleaner snorkel. My van's speed cresting Cajon Pass immediatly increased and the added power was also very noticable while pulling the trailer into a headwind. The air flow was so much increased that larger carburetor jets were required to eliminate pinging after installing the cold air intake.

I would encourage you to use your ingenuity in making any improvements you can and see how they work out for you. It's fun!

I just converted my '36 pickup from 4.11 to 3.55 gears after being told by the "experts" that it couldn't be done. There is a detailed write up on that conversion with a lot of pictures on the 1936 Chevy Owners online forum.

Man, these kind of responses are exactly what I joined this forum for. thanks to everyone for the variety of opinion and info. I'm definitely not gonna alter the old filter, but I think after changing the oil in it I'll seek out an after market filter and compare the performance.

I didn't hack up my oil bath filter, but found an old mesh type filter in a boneyard, and put a paper element in that. Works great, and I can put it back stock anytime!