RE: Re[2]: [ihc] re: oilbath filters

["Steven Stegmann" <steve.stegmann@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When the air "bubbles" through the oil what really happens is that the oil
is just blasted into a fog of small droplets that the air passes through.
As the air hits the oil droplets the dust will hopefully stick to the oil.
I'd imagine that if the air passes through the gauze last, the gauze is
mostly to prevent all of the oil from being rapidly carried over into the
engine.

All of our tractors (1930s and 40s) have air filters like this and the inlet
tube is below the static level of the oil.  They work and there is no
"filter" that I can remember.

I've done this same thing with a shop vac, but using water.  I don't have a
successful water separator and if the water level gets just a bit too high
you should see the wet exhaust.  If I keep the exhaust dry, the dirt isn't
effectively trapped.  It works fine on large particles (sawdust, general
cleaning) but some of the fine dust from sandblasting gets through.  With a
good water separator I could get much better dust retention without the
carryover.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ihc@domain.elided [mailto:owner-ihc@domain.elided]On Behalf Of
John Hofstetter
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 6:08 PM
To: ken.dunnington; IHC Digest
Subject: Re: Re[2]: [ihc] re: oilbath filters


on 2/17/04 3:29 PM, ken.dunnington at ken.dunnington@domain.elided wrote:

> I sent pics to John.  The list only gets is brief description.
>
> The HD oilbath in the DD manual shows the type that feeds in from the
> top and out to the intake from the side.  So the air travels down
> through the entire length of the unit in the innermost tube before
> being filtered. This tube terminates below oil level.  Thus the air
> must "bubble" through the oil to then go up around this tube, through
> the steel gauze, and out the side.
>
> Ken

Ken,

I really appreciate you sending me the picture. That was really nice of you
to take the time to try and help educate me.

however, I don't see the air going through any oil. I assume that there is
oil in the bottom of the filter, or else the gauze is saturated with oil,
but the diagram doesn't show a reservoir of oil coming up above the intake
tube. Or, am I not seeing it?

I just took another look at the two pictures. The oil in the light duty
filter is shown by light broken lines. The heavy duty filter has the same
lines but the level is below the bottom of the intake tube.

I suspect that the main difference between light and heavy duty is that in
the light duty the air goes through the "gauze" first, and in the heavy duty
filter the air goes through the much thicker layer of "gauze" after it has
hopefully dropped its dust into the oil.

What do you think/

John