Oil bath air filter

[preach it]

The Vermeer stump grinder that I purchased has a oil bath air filter. I changed the oil in it, cleaned the air filter out the best that I could and put in 10-30 oil in the oil bath. Is the oil bath air filter supposed to be in 10-30 oil or something else? Thanks

 

[Rookie1]

I think they are older,of course,before multiweight oil and just used straight viscosity oil like 30wt. I think right now it doesnt matter just use whatever oil you put in engine like you did already.I worked with "oldtimers" that swore those were the best filters ever.They didnt like paper element filters,but they sure are easier to change rather than washing out oil.

 

[Brimmstone]

People wonder why the engines on the old cars lasted so long considering the abuse some of them had. The oil bath air cleaner was the most efficient ever made. It was discontinued due to the fact that it protected the engine so well. I've taken apart engines in jeeps to reseal them and found almost none of the wear on the valve I find in newer engines operating in a dusty environment. The oil is a dead stop to all dust, dirt, chips, and all other particulate matter. Take an old oil bath apart that has been used for a while and you'll find it has a pretty good layer of sludge down in the bottom. That sludge is all the crap that the oil stopped from getting into the engine. That is why they oil foam air filters. The oil will grab most of the smaller dust particles that can normally get through the filter.

 

[Frank Boyer]

In the 50's when oil bath air cleaners were common cars needed rings, crank bearings, and a valve job every 25,000 miles or so. Now cars go 200-300K miles without the engine being taken Part. Oil bath air cleaners keep out the big rocks. Diesel trucks went from 100K mile engine service times to 1 million mile tear downs. Our oils were improved till the 2008 LE oils, but paper filters are much better.

 

[Brimmstone]

In the 50's when oil bath air cleaners were common cars needed rings, crank bearings, and a valve job every 25,000 miles or so. Now cars go 200-300K miles without the engine being taken Part. Oil bath air cleaners keep out the big rocks. Diesel trucks went from 100K mile engine service times to 1 million mile tear downs. Our oils were improved till the 2008 LE oils, but paper filters are much better.

I'm curious what your background in mechanics is. I've been a mechanic for over 20 years now and have worked on farm and industrial equipment for years and have been involved first hand in filtration testing to see the advantages. Pleated Paper filters do NOT filter better than an oil bath. It has been proven many times. Oil baths were phased out as a way to ease maintenance. I will say a quality paper filter works better than a washable reusable filter. All of my trucks and equipment use paper filters if they didn't have an oil bath on them. My two tractors both have their original oil bath cleaners and will always use them.

My 1949 Jeep still has it's original oil bath is still on it's first engine and has over 300000 hours on the hour meter my grandfather installed on it. I recently pulled the head and side cover to do a valve job on the old flat head as it had never been done. I was happy to find that there was almost no characteristic wear patterns from operating in a dusty environment.


Sometimes the old tech is still the best. A good case is the 1911 colt so named for being produced in 1911 and still in production today virtually unchanged.

 

[Frank Boyer]

I started working in service stations in 1958 and have worked in automotive since then. I have completed a 4 year apprenticeship, worked as a line mechanic, and taught auto at the vocational/CC/apprenticeship level for 32 years. I spend 1-3 weeks a year in manufacture level auto classes. I have never done research on filtration.

My observations are based on the changing service levels needed to keep engines running over the years. Better design, better oil, and fewer dirt roads may be the difference. A factory engineer at a Ford class that I took said that "6-8 onces of dirt can ruin an engine". I firmly believe that oil bath air cleaners do not filter as well as paper filters.

Do you have any research/documentation that shows oil bath cleaners do a better job of filtering? I am going by engine life being extended by ten times.

 

[Brimmstone]

I'll go through my files that I brought down to Texas with me tonight if they are not there I'll have my mom looked through the filing cabinets up in Ohio. I think it was a 30 percent reduction in particulate when you switched between paper to oil bath. I didn't think it was better at first myself and was kinda shocked to see the reduction. If memory serves me how they measured the amount of dust passing through was after the different filters it hit a special filter. I can't remember the exact micron count but basically the final filter was weighed before and after the test. Out of all the test the one that gained the least weight was the oil bath. I won't even go into how bad the so called performance filters did. They did the worst of all of them. The second best was a two part filter that was a paper-oiled foam unit. I wish I could find filter foam that would fit around the filter in my diesel.

 

[tomtrees58]

30 sea thats it tom trees

 

[Rookie1]

Keep it up fellas Im enjoying this.:sword: opcorn:

 

[omegajim]

I believe oil bath is a good, but finicky system.

drive up a steep hill, or across one (on a tractor ) and you'll see what I mean.

Current, modern oil (in the crankcase) will help an engine last a lot longer than the old days.

I also believe that air filters have only caught up to oil baths in the last decade, or so - and that's for top of the line filters.

Still amazed to this day, how long some of the old iron can keep running and the punishment it must have gone through.

but other than that, keep up the discussion. I'm going to get me a big bag of reddy pop.

 

[preach it]

I like this discussion also, it's something that I am not real familiar with.

I tried to clean the stainless steel mesh filter above the oil the best that I could. It had a quite a bit of mess in it, it hadn't been cleaned in a while. I didn't want to mess with it too much as the stainless steel seemed to be flaking/breaking up a little bit. Is there a replacement that can be purchased for the stainless steel filter? Thanks

 

[chucknduck]

I don't know which filter works better, but my chipper is an old asplundh from 1969. I has a ford 391 v8, runs like a champ! It has an oil bath filter in it. I don't run it faster than 2000 rpm, that might have something to do with it.

 

[omegajim]

an older engine will run a lot longer with modern oil.

even standard oil (slightly better than sludge, imho) is a huge improvement over anything available 30 years ago.

Further, if you step up to semi synthetic, things will work better.

Lastly, more and more, I'm coming around to synthetic.

 

[tdi-rick]

People wonder why the engines on the old cars lasted so long considering the abuse some of them had. The oil bath air cleaner was the most efficient ever made. It was discontinued due to the fact that it protected the engine so well. I've taken apart engines in jeeps to reseal them and found almost none of the wear on the valve I find in newer engines operating in a dusty environment. The oil is a dead stop to all dust, dirt, chips, and all other particulate matter. Take an old oil bath apart that has been used for a while and you'll find it has a pretty good layer of sludge down in the bottom. That sludge is all the crap that the oil stopped from getting into the engine. That is why they oil foam air filters. The oil will grab most of the smaller dust particles that can normally get through the filter.

Sorry, but oil bath air cleaners are very sub standard compared to virtually any paper style element.
Oil baths work by impaction, whereby the contaminant hits the media (usually metal shavings) and falls into the oil bath which holds it.
Lots of contaminants flow past the media (lest face it, the gaps are huge) and into the engine.

Can't remember what efficiency they have, but it's pretty low.
A friend of mine who is a filtration research engineer (he has a PhD, has written peer reviewed papers and worked with the biggest filter media manufacturers in the world on R&D, including Cummins Filtration (Fleetgaurd), Mann-Hummel in Germany and Donaldson) has a pretty low opinion of them, and one of his old Land Rovers had one. He ditched it for a Donaldson.

Generally with oil baths you used to use the same oil that went into the engine, eg. my old Tractor specced 20W-40 oil in both engine and air cleaner, so I just use a 15W-40 these days.
I'm sure a 10W-30 would be fine, it's only there to hold the dust that's dropped into the sump.

 

[icthruu74]

You guys are making me want to go out and check out my old Farmall...

I know is that when I got it I cleaned about 2 pounds of crud out of the air cleaner...

 

[Hoosier]

I checked mine today on the ole Chipmore. The oil looked good and there was only a bit of material in the bottom of the pan, so I left it alone. I changed the motor oil, it really did not need it, but it was low anyway. I did find the vacuum advance pull-off had lost a screw and was falling off the distributor, no wonder it was surging at WOT. :greenchainsaw:

 

[bushinspector]

Going green

Since I'm starting to go a little green, I thought is was a great way to reuse old oil that had been in the engine.!!!!!!

 

[Slvrmple72]

My chipper has the oil filter on it. It has the Ford straight 6 industrial engine. I have changed out the oil but was wondering what would be a good way to clean the filter media? I was thinking mineral spirits and then a good compressor blow job to clear it out after it has dried. I try to keep the engine level when working so the oil in the filter does the job, something you don't have to worry about with the paper filters.

 

[Rookie1]

My chipper has the oil filter on it. It has the Ford straight 6 industrial engine. I have changed out the oil but was wondering what would be a good way to clean the filter media? I was thinking mineral spirits and then a good compressor blow job to clear it out after it has dried. I try to keep the engine level when working so the oil in the filter does the job, something you don't have to worry about with the paper filters.

I think that would be fine. I used to wash them in solvent tank then blow out majority of solvent.I think if you keep oil at level marked on side of cup it is low enough for oil to slosh on eneven ground.

 

[Brushwacker]

My farmall manual says to clean the oil bath daily. I suppose they anticipate the old days running over plowed ground and excessive dust.
Back in my childhood days my Dad had a Farmall B with a belly mower which mowed at least 1 or more lawns for about 25+ years. Through those years it run about 75% of the augers during harvest and later when unloading for market,talking farming mostly corn at roughly avg 100bu per acre farming 400 acres in the mid 70's and 2000+ in 2000. I drove that tractor like a car for transportation before I got my license. Found out how to override the govener and get near twice the speed out of it. Had pulling contest with my neighbors cub cadet ,hardly ever cleaned the oil bath and I donot ever remember it getting overhauled. The only thing I remember fixing from my use was the draw bar which became a wheelie bar and got bent. Its still being used about half as much on smaller augars and I had been using it to mow woods roads until I bought my own farmall c last year. I remember a few repairs but no motor. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been overhauled once when I was gone for an extended time but either way the engine has held up incredibly considering the hours put on it.