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Farmall M stupid oil bath filter question

T

tcanthonyii

Member
Ok so I finally hooked up my air filter today. Just been too lazy and I dont' really using a ton and it's not horribly dusty, none the less I should have done it in June when I got the tractor. Well I guess, september when the guy I bought it from finally gave me all the air filter parts!

Anyway does the oil go in the center whole of the dish or in the outer "dough nut"?

thanks guys


T.C.
 
Andy is correct. Look close and you will likely find a slot or two at the bottom of the divider that allows oil to equalize level to both sides.
 
Usually there is a pressed in dimple in the cup that is where the oil level is supposed to be filled to. Oil is in both the sections of the cup.
 
Its not a stupid question, I asked the same one myself when I first got my M.

You can add oil to either part, there should be holes in the inner ring that allow the oil in/out, so the level will come up no matter where you add it. Since the oil can get pretty funky and doesnt really have to be super oil, I just use the straight 30w oil from Wal-Mart that is their economy oil. Its non-detergent, and I was able to get it for about a buck fifty a few months back... I dont know what it is these days...
 
Definitely both. Paper filters have a hugh advantage over oil bath filters and that is why you do not see them on modern cars and other equipment. If the unit was for working and not for show, you might consider a kit to convert to paper. We had an oil bath filter on a 3-cylinder Perkins Diesle that would fill with solid dust in less than 40 hours of work. We had to clean and refill it about twice a week. LMack
 
Though I agree the maintenance is much easier on a paper filter system, that gunked up dust came from the air and if the paper filter didn't plug up, where was that dirt!. There are good paper filters, and bad sponge filters, and undersized oil bath filters. I believe the air cleaning value of oil bath filters is very high.
They do not breath like a K&N filter for competition, but they should only compete against dirt. JimN
 
All my old manuals, IH, AC, JD, say to service air cleaner daily, Case 800 says may need cleaning after 5 hours in dusty conditions.
 

True, but who does that?

We still ran oil bath tractors daily when I was a kid and we never even looked at the oil bath air cleaners. I don't even think we changed the oil in the bath when we changed the oil in the engine.

How much good do they really do and how much harm does the dust really do? I can see a problem in really dusty conditions but where I grew up it wasn't very dusty and there was almost always a breeze that carried the dust away before it got anywhere near the engine.
 
Either, there are holes between them to allow the level to equalize. The purpose of the ring is to control air flow.

Keith
 
It was definitely dusty conditions and I still have the dust in my lungs to show for it! I think I was 14 when we had that Ford and I do not believe my dad ever read a manual. We probalby should have cleaned the air filter daily. Thanks for correcting me. LMack
 
Jim,

We had oil bath filters on the other gasoline engines and they worked just fine being higher and drawing a good bit less air (gasoline vs diesle). It even worked fine on the Perkins D. I believe it was probably undersized for the conditions we were puting it through. The air intake on the Dexter D was about 3-feet off the ground. All the Farmalls were more like 5' 6" which made a huge difference both to the intake to the engine and me as an operator. I guess one of the reasons I perfered the paper filters was that failure to service did not damage the engine but did lead to poor performance which forced more diligent service. LMack
 
The book for my old case says to use same oil as engine but nothing lighter than 30 wt because if too light it could be sucked into tractor. In real dirty work mine would fill half full daily (8 hrs), and I had a Donaldson air cleaner on the top of intake pipe also.
 
Try running a 450 or 560 on a picker. Oil bath was serviced daily & was always full.
The JD dealership had an oil bath cup from a 4020 that had to be overhauled at less than 1000 hours because of lack of servicing the oil bath. The cup was level full of dirt. The cup was on display in the shop.
 
The way an oil bath filter works (at least these work this way) is there is a mesh screen up inside the can. As dirty air is drawn in the heavier particles hit the oil and sink to the bottom while it picks up an oil mist and carries it up through the mesh. Dust attaches itself to the oily mesh screen and the oil mist that's carried up finally gets to heavy to stay there so it runs back down taking the dust with it. When the oil gets full of dirt it doesn't get sucked up as easy so the dirt doesn't get washed down as fast and the mesh builds up with an oily sludge to the point of plugging. So the can needs to come off periodically and be washed with solvent till it runs clear and the cup needs to be serviced often. Any cheap oil will work in it. 30 weight is good. The only reason the oil bath filter was discontinued was for economic reasons among other things not because it didn't work well. It is harder to make and costlier to maintain. By the way DON'T use waste oil in it as some small amount of oil is sucked into the engine and metal particles could be in the waste oil. ...Randy
 
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