Air Cleaner Mystery!!

RKS.PA

RKS.PA

Well-known member
This air cleaner came on the '39 Deluxe Fordor I bought in 1996. It looks like maybe it was intended for an industrial application. Seems like putting vacuum on the oil fill breather would reverse the normal flow though the engine?

The letters on one side of the fitting at the top of the air cleaner says AN and the other side says DUX.

Any ideas??

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I suspect that the oil cap, hose and fitting are an aftermarket set up you could buy from Western Auto or other stores to attach to your stock air cleaner. Early smog control device.
 
If there is not any way to shut off the flow from the air cleaner to the breather, a carburetor backfire could turn the engine crankcase into a hand grenade..
 
Some of the early over head valve V-8s had a valley pan cover. I saw one that blew off the engine due to so much blowby
 
51 MERC-CT said:
If there is not any way to shut off the flow from the air cleaner to the breather, a carburetor backfire could turn the engine crankcase into a hand grenade..
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There is no "check valve" between the air cleaner and the breather. There is a series of fins as a baffle in the breather, but whether they are enough to be a flame arrestor is beyond me.

51 Merc, you did get my attention with the hand grenade observation. Makes me want to throw the thing out, although the rest of the aircleaner with the breather hose blocked is a decent dry type air cleaner.
 
Keeps the smell/oil fumes from flowby out of the car. I ran one of these for years with no problems.
 
jimTN said:
Keeps the smell/oil fumes from flowby out of the car. I ran one of these for years with no problems.
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Jim, that makes sense to me. When we first got the car and before I rebuilt the engine, I put a nice chrome air cleaner on in place of this one. You needed to take a shower after each trip to get rid to the oil fume smells!!
 
Kurt in NJ>>>If there is a screen or metal mesh packed in the cap that serves as flame arrester>>>


jimTN>>>Keeps the smell/oil fumes from flowby out of the car. I ran one of these for years with no problems.>>>


Agreed. These crankcase fume entrainment air cleaners work very well. Jack E/NJ
 
This is a home made one that’s similar. Vents the fumes into the exhaust on a stationary engine..... Mark
 

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RKS.PA said:
This air cleaner came on the '39 Deluxe Fordor I bought in 1996. It looks like maybe it was intended for an industrial application. Seems like putting vacuum on the oil fill breather would reverse the normal flow though the engine?

The letters on one side of the fitting at the top of the air cleaner says AN and the other side says DUX.

Any ideas??

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View attachment 425625
Click to expand...

I've seen similar versions of this. Yep, after-market as some have suggested. These seemed to have become common place when our old Fords were starting to have some serious blow-by and were just getting old enough that it didn't make sense financially to fix them properly.
The basic idea of this filter and others like it were to circulate the blow-by back in to the engine and thereby expel it through the exhaust system.
 
Thanks to all who responded! I have no current or foreseeable use for this relic!

If you PM me a mailing address, I'll box it up and ship it to you....and I'll even pay the shipping via USPS Priority!! First one to PM gets it.

If you can use it, I'm happy, and I'm grateful for all the help I get here on the Barn with my flathead projects!!

Dick.
 
That's certainly very nice of you considering that all engines have a certain degree of blowby, even brand new ones. If you're moving slowly in heavy traffic, with the road draft tube not sucking too much out the crankcase bottom, you might find a use for the relic again. 8^) Jack E/NJ
 
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