Air Cleaner

I picked up a fairly neat Air Cleaner the other day over at Studebaker John's--a mid-50's Packard air cleaner (I believe) that can be easily switched from an oil bath to a paper filter. Pretty cool.

sorry for the unsteady phone pic!

This said, it has a few problems--there are a couple of small dents and dings and since it had been sitting for a while it had managed to get a manageable size mouse nest inside of it. Unfortunately, since it was sealed there was no way to get into it to remove the nest or get to the backside of the dings to pound them out. So off comes the bottom.

I used a cutting wheel on a dremel--this would allow me to weld the bottom piece back in place later.

 

And somehow, those nests are always bigger than you expect them to be:

Now that I look at it (and the tubing that was inside this part) there really is a lot of restriction in this air cleaner. Might be better if I open/clean things up a bit:

no going back now

Since I did that, I needed a way to bolt the filter on. I could weld a piece of metal and drill a hole and tap it to thread in a bit of all-thread. But then there'd be this big piece of metal right in the way of the flow. Hmm...I wonder.

A little twist here and there...

And a couple of welds should make that a little better

And it is back together, ready to go be rechromed.

But first, I think I'll see if I can find a filter that will fit slightly better...