Air Cleaner Disassembly--Oil Bath on TO-30

Stubbyie

Member
Dear Fellow Air Breathers:

I'm trying to clean the 1950's road tar from an oil bath air filter. So far, soaking in 100-F gasoline hasn't touched it. I'm surprised it could breath at all.

Has anyone completely disassembled the oil bath type air cleaner on a TO-30?

Can the metal mesh filter element be removed and if so, how? What's the process?

Within the outer filter body shell, how 'tall' or 'long' is the metal mesh filter element?

When the body is full of solvent I can hear sloshing that sounds to me like there is a cavity between the top of the metal mesh filter element and the air-outlet-to-carb tube.

All information and specific ideas how to completely clean this mess are greatly appreciated.
 
Here is a copy of the system from the Ferguson manual. Lacquer thinner will clean almost anything-The bad is it may eat the paint in some cases. Test a spot to see if the paint is resistant to Lacquer thinner. Then maybe trying that will loosen it up so you can clean it with a milder solvent.
 
Woops try again.
a124895.jpg
 
Stubb, I soaked my TO-20 assembly in mineral spirits this weekend, and finally got it clean. (Kerosene works too, but I didn"t have any.)

I let it soak for a few hours, poured through the assembly (backwards), and repeated until the mineral spirits looked pretty clean.

As discussed in other threads, you can also drill out the spot welds holding the bottom screen on the assembly, then remove the screen and the filter media, which can be cleaned or replaced. (This site sells the filter media.)

Drilling out those welds, then riveting or screwing the screen back on so that the oil cup would fit, looked like a challenge, so I opted for soaking.
 
I had one once that would barely let kero seep through it. I did soak it for a few days but had to dig all that gunked up crap out with a screwdriver.
 
I took the air cleaner off my to-35 and soaked it in kerosene for over night.

the next day as others said I back flushed it until the fresh kerosene came out looking clean.

lot of dirt in mine after all these years.

then I let it air drip/dry for another 24 hrs as I did not want to pull a bunch of kerosene into my carb.

fired the old tractor up and she ran great.

no problems, tractor is a 1957 model and to knowledge all maint the air filter has ever gotten is changing the oil and cleaning the pan of oil at the bottom of the air cleaner.

I would not take that mesh wire out of the filter, have read horror stories about the fact you cannot get it back in there and not available to buy new, but your call on that one.

they must have used some type press to insert the wire mesh screen.

good luck,
 
Stubbyie you can take that apart and unroll the steel wool then you can clean it just like it came originally. Around the edge of the container, without the oil container on the air cleaner, you should see some electric spot welds. Take a thin knife blade carefully slide it down between the cleaner body and that thin part that keeps the steel wool up in place use a small hammer to tap the blade through the welds. Mine had 3 spot welds but I have seen up to 4. Once you separate the spot welds then you can take the holder out. I had a pail with some gas in it and kept lifting the steel wool up and down. I had unrolled the steel wool to begin with. After you are convinced it is clean and fairly dry you can roll the steel wool up. I used a toilet paper center cardboard to roll my wool up on then I put the cardboard roll over the center part in the air cleaner and slid the steel wool off the cardboard onto the air cleaner just like it was before you cleaned the steel wool. Then use a drill to drill small holes through the spot weld marks and pop rivet them back together. Richard
 
took my MF65 one apart tonite, about 1/3 of the top mesh was rusted away

rolled up the mesh on a tube and slipped in very nicely, thank you for the tip
 
I recently had an air cleaner that was dirtier than anything I have ever witnessed. 24 hours soaking in parts cleaning fluid to the easy stuff off. To really clean it I used the steam cleaner and melted the rest of the grease out of it.
 
I like the idea about using a steam cleaner. Sort of hard to find in this area for small jobs...but it gives me an idea:

Soaked in gasoline for a few days and got some clean but left a hard tar-like deposit in some areas on the face of the steel wool.

We've got a cut-down drum we use for outdoor canning (processing a huge batch of jars all at once). I think this weekend I'll spend a few minutes boiling the beejeebers out of this thing and see how it looks before trying to take it apart.

I'll bet I wind up repainting before it's over.

Will post back the continuing adventures involving a reluctant air cleaner that needs to be.
 

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