801 series Air Cleaner maintainance?

The oil bath Air Cleaner from my 58? 861 had very nasty looking oil when I took it off to service it. Can I soak the body of the air cleaner with the
mesh that looks like it won?t come out in kerosene to clean it? Parts cleaner maybe? It?s pretty dirty in there.

It's been quite a while since I cleaned mine. Don't use
tractor all that much. Seems like I took a scraper and
got the most of it, then some gas and thinner with a
brush cleaned mine up. Sound like yours may be dirtier
than mine was though. I do think parts cleaner should
loosen it up.

Yes, but you can soak it until the cows come home and you will not get all of the accumulated dirt out.

Remove the mesh. It's stainless steel and should hold up. If not, new mesh is available.

Don't for get the down tube. I've seen down tubes closed off to 1/2" Dia. or so with accumulated dirt. Most have NEVER been cleaned.

Dean

What I did was take all the mesh out and soak it overnight in a solution of sodium hyroxide (lye, red devil drain cleaner). Before the mesh was filled with soybean-plant-looking debris. All of that was dissolved and after a rinsing the mesh looked like new. I've never heard of anyone else trying or recommending this so proceed at your own risk.

blueox,
I have a 1957 model TO35 Ferguson and I cleaned my air filter tower a few years ago, dad bought the tractor in 1960, so I know the air filter tower had never been cleaned.

however, the oil bath oil had been serviced properly over the years.


I took the air box tower off the tractor and soaked it in a 5 gal bucket of kerosene for about 5 hours. Then rinsed it out over and over with clean kerosene until the kerosene came out just as clean as it was when I poured it into the filter.

let the air filter tower drip dry on an old wooden wagon bed for 1 day until no kerosene dripped out. Installed the air filter added new oil to the oil pan and fired up the tractor, might just be me wanting it run better after all that work, but yes I do believe it ran better, it had too because there was much dirt that washed out of that filter tower.

Just my humble opinion:
I would try washing it out first, all it going to cost you is some time and 5 gals of kerosene, if you are not happy with the results, then take that filter mesh out.

but be advised,
I read more than one horror story of others taking that mesh material out and then not being able to get it back in, guess it just depends on your mechanical ability and the condition of your filter mesh material.

good luck and let us know how filter cleaning works out for you,

I agree with Dean. Take the plunge and do it right. You won't have to do it again for the next 20+ years (grin).