16 ❘ September05, 2019 http://www.oldcarsweekly.comfresh air cleaners
T
he air cleaner on your modern
vehicle is probably a throw-
away item. When you bring
your car or truck in for an oil
change or tune-up, the service
technician takes out the old fi l-
ter, pops a new one into the housing,
fastens some wire clips and away you
go. The replacement disposable air fi lter
usually costs less than $10, although re-
usable high-performance fi lters can cost
$60 or more.
Things were different in the good old
days. Until the late 1980s, most vehicles
had carburetors and what we now sim-
ply call an “air fi lter” was once called
a “carburetor air cleaner.” Throw-away-
type carburetor air cleaners started to
appear in the late 1950s, but prior to
that, the carburetor air cleaner (aka air
breather) was a component designed
to be disassembled, cleaned and some-
times re-oiled in the spring and fall, or
at least every 10,000 miles of use. And
if a vehicle was operated in areas wheredust conditions were bad, it was recom-
mended that the carburetor air cleaner
be serviced every 2,000 miles.
By the 1940s, most automakers of-
fered car buyers a choice of standard
and oil bath carburetor air cleaners.
Both types had to be re-oiled, but the oil
bath designs were heavy-duty in nature
and had an oil reservoir. They are also
more popular with modern collectors
since they were usually an extra-cost
option.
Carburetor air cleaners served two
functions. First, they fi ltered air enter-
ing the carburetor to keep abrasive dust
from being carried into the engine. Sec-
ond, they silenced the noise produced
by air rushing into the carburetor.
With standard carburetor air clean-
ers, the fi ltering function was accom-
plished by passing air through a fi lter el-ement that had been moistened in heavy
engine oil. The element was made of a
stiff metal mesh held between two cir-
cular sections of metal screening that fi t
into the top of a metal canister and were
held in place by a lid. A thin bolt passed
through a hole in the center of the lid
and accepted a wing nut that held the lid
on tightly.
The heavy-duty oil bath type of car-
buretor air cleaner was intended for use
in cars driven in dusty areas where the
standard air fi lter could not keep the air
clean enough. The heavy-duty type had
an oil reservoir in its base. The air enter-
ing the carburetor fi rst had to impinge
on the oil stored in the reservoir, which
took out some of the heavier dust parti-
cles. The high velocity of the air stream
picked up some of the oil and carried it
upward into the fi lter element. This keptServicing old-fashioned air cleaners
STORY AND PHOTOS BY JOHN GUNNELL
From the engine
collection at the
Don Garlits Antique
Auto Museum in
Ocala, Fla., comes
this 1952 Chrysler
Firepower Hemi
with an oil bath air
cleaner.Smokey Yunick hopped up this 1964
Buick “Nailhead” V-8 to churn up more
than 600 hp. He kept the original “dry
element” air cleaner, however.