1936 Air Cleaner

S

spike31

Junior Member
Hello, I'm trying to get inside of a 1936 Ford air Cleaner to clean it out real good and pound out some dents. It looks like a closed unit except for the top plate. Anyone out there ever restore one of these and is there a secret to opening them up?

Thanks for your help !
 
Cant get inside, I went thru 3 till I found a decent one with minor dents, just fill em, sand, repaint.
 
People have done it. Cut the little bars that hold it together, take it apart, clean everything, then solder the pieces back together. Very labor intensive, however.
 
Fords instructions were to" Remove top plate and wash screen with gasoline, drain to dry and re-coat the screen with engine oil". Sounds dangerous but I guess Henry figured customers would have enough sense to do it outside and use only rags or sponges, no steel wool, wire brushes or metal tools. I run detergent water through it then rinse with water under pressure and let it dry. Then coat it with 10 wt engine oil. Any obstruction at all will decrease fuel mileage as if you are running with the choke partially closed.
 
Sorry, I got off track of the original question, I took all the old paint off, used good body filler on dents and scratches, smooth sanded it with a block sand and repainted it with epoxy spray paint. If you use only detergent water to clean it, the paint will last a long time.
 
Charlie NY, posted a procedure on the old Fordbarn on how he rebuilt '35-'36 air cleaners. It involved cutting the bars at the top to replace the mesh material and then soldering the bars back together. The body is a double wall construction and does not allow access to inner wall to remove dents. Send Charlie a PM asking him to post his procedure again on this thread.
 
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