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Thread: Ground up 51 update

  1. #21
    Need an opinion please. I have a shot at a 1949 Donaldson air cleaner, supposedly off a cj3a. He wants 200 firm. I like it, it looks so different from the reproduction ones sold that are all around 175. A lot of my build is new repro stuff because the originals were beyond repair but I do have a smattering of original throughout. Would you get that air cleaner, it looks like in mint shape? And is a 49 any different from the 51 I’m building?
    Thanks, and Happy holidays to all
    Tom

  2. #22
    Senior Member 5JeepsAz's Avatar
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    How are you making decisions on what is acceptable? Seems like this is one of many ahead as your build with 'new to the jeep' parts. I would hazard a guess that you will grab it up and slap it on, but only time will tell...

  3. #23
    Super Moderator bmorgil's Avatar
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    Tom, I ave this one on my 3A https://www.kaiserwillys.com/categor...w-cj-2a-3a-m38 It is exactly like the original. I was able to compare it to the originals at the shows. It is the same part, cant tell the difference. (Except I have the sticker in the wrong spot!) There were a few different brands used Dondaldson, Oakes and a dry Fram. The one from KW is an original design and bolted right into my Jeep.
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    Last edited by bmorgil; 12-27-2021 at 07:51 AM.

  4. #24
    Sorry I didn’t get back gents, I had log in issues for a bit… Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts. I guess it doesn’t matter what I put in. I had no idea the KW air cleaner was that nice. Once again, “correct” on some of the things with these Jeeps is a broad term. I also didn’t know about there being 3 manufacturers of them. So the Donaldson that I did in fact buy, because I like the design, will look just fine. Now I hope I can find a filter element for it.
    Happy Holidays everyone!

  5. #25
    Super Moderator bmorgil's Avatar
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    The Dondaldson is an oil bath air cleaner. There isn't an element originally. It has a mesh insert over oil. To convert it to an element follow this thread from the Tech Library on this forum.

    https://willysjeepforum.kaiserwillys...-to-An-Element

    For more about the original design, here is something LarrBeard put together.

    https://willysjeepforum.kaiserwillys...r-Cleaners-101
    Last edited by bmorgil; 12-28-2021 at 07:07 PM.

  6. #26
    Excellent, excellent, excellent! Good read… thank you. I am officially excited about my”new”
    Donaldson air cleaner.

  7. #27
    Super Moderator bmorgil's Avatar
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    Haha! I truly understand what you mean by "officially excited". It is really a great time working on these old things and getting them figured out. A lot of history in a restore.

  8. #28
    Super Moderator LarrBeard's Avatar
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    Here is a note from August 2017 when we all were curious about the Donaldson air cleaner. It is a surprisingly sophisticated device:

    It is funny how a lot of us end up talking about the same subject at the same time. The discussion of this week has been oil bath air cleaners. Oil bath air cleaners, Donaldson oil bath air cleaners in particular, are an item that look simple, but have a lot of sophistication once we start looking at them.

    Donaldson air cleaners rely on the fact that dirt has weight – and anything with weight has inertia. We don’t think of dust and grit as having inertia, but particles of crud tend to keep moving in the same direction just like everything else. Donaldson air cleaners take advantage of this to make dirty, gritty, dusty air into something that our Jeep carburetors will use and not grind up the innards of our engines. In fact, a guy named Dyson is making a lot of money selling vacuum cleaners that use this same principle.

    The oil bath air cleaner consists of a canister having two concentric cylinders inside it. Dirty air enters the cleaner through a number of holes in the side of the outer canister. In many of the civilian Jeep applications, these holes are up against the wheel well so that as little rain or other water as possible will get into the air stream. On the M38 and M151 military Jeeps, which go swimming on a regular basis, there is a water separator to make water entry less probable.

    Air enters the outer canister, it swirls around the inner metal cylinder and is drawn downward toward the bottom of the air cleaner. This swirling action does two things; the cyclone action uses the inertia of the larger dust and grit particles to throw them against the wall of the outer cylinder and then lets them drop into the oil puddle in the bowl at the bottom of the filter. At the bottom of the outer cylinder, the air stream makes a 180 degree turn, heading upward into the inner chamber of the air cleaner. Once again, inertia comes into play. Most remaining dust and grit does not make the 180-degree turn and drops into the oil puddle.

    Now, the mostly clean air enters the inner canister where it goes through the steel wool, or whatever material, to the air cleaner outlet at the hose to the carburetor. This material acts again as a maze for remaining dust particles and provides acceptably clean air to the engine.

    Yep, it’s messy. But – it has the advantage that it is a fail-safe design. Even if the oil bath at the bottom gets so full of dirt, dust and grit that it turns into a solid block of grease, the inertia action of the filter and the steel wool maze will still remove a bunch of dirt from the air stream. A paper filter is a fail unsafe device – if it gets dirty the air stream is blocked and the engine quits. This is no big deal if you can run down to the parts store for a new Fram air filter, but if you are in West Waziristan BFE ….. .

    And, once again, the CJ3 people have done a much better job of describing this that I can. Here is a link to find out everything you would ever want to know:

    http://www.cj3a.info/tech/aircleaner.html


    And another note: If you don't want to deal with the loose oil in the reservoir at the bottom of the filter, a piece of oil-soaked foam still does a very good job of trapping dirt, especially if all you are doing is street driving. But, if you are going to go out and play in the dirt - use the oil bath and just deal with the mess.

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