A real air filter for the Studebaker

Posted on by December 8, 2024
The “factory” air filter is just this ring of copper “wool” soaked in oil. This was used in “clean” regions. Studebaker also had an oil bath version used in “dusty” regions. I have never been happy with it, you can see through it which means a lot of unfiltered air is going into the engine. So I started looking for alternatives.

This is what I came up with. Kohler #25 883 03-S1 for a Magnum 8HP. This is a circular paper air filter element.

The inside and outside diameters are a perfect match! I pulled out my spare air filter for a test fitting.
The catch is it is a little more than 1/2″ higher than the original. As you can see, the rod that holds it together is not long enough. Bummer. I considered shaving down the rubber rings on the top and bottom of the filter but that seemed difficult and messy to pull off.
Instead I decided to make the rod longer. I found this screw in the same thread (#10-32) and chopped the head off.
The factory rod has a tapered end so I used my drill press and a file to taper the end of the screw. Looks close-ish. I also cut it to length so when it sticks out as much as the original did.
I do have a second air filter and briefly considered welding the extension on but decided this was better. I bought a coupling nut and used that to make the screw into an extension adapter.
Here is how that works. it just screws onto the original rod so the whole thing can be undone in a couple of minutes. You can see how nicely this Kohler element fits into the filter.
The new hardware looks way to, well, new so I decided to hit it with cold bluing solution. This is intended for firearms and does an OK job if the metal is absolutely clean. It worked great on the coupling nut but barely touched the screw. It might be stainless steel. Insted I heated it red-hot with a torch and let it cool slowly which darkened up the metal considerably.
The nightmare scenario here is this contraption coming loose and getting ingested into the engine. So I used red Locktite to attach the screw into the coupling.
Here is the end result. A neat job I think.
Here it is all assembled on the air cleaner for my car. Unless someone knows the difference it looks factory. I just tighted the adapter on the original rod with a wrench. I will keep an eye on it. If it starts coming loose I will Locktite the adapter on as well.
Now the only question is will this stick up enough to interfere with the hood? I don’t think so but I would hate to be wrong.
I set a bit of cardboard on top so I could see any issues and carefully closed the hood. No problems!
While I had the filter off I decided to try an address another problem. Since I had the carb rebuilt, the car always tries to flood when starting hot. I think what is happening is the choke is closing to aggressively and making the starting mixture too rich when the engine is still hot. To adjust, all I have to do is loosen the three screws on the themostat and rotate it in the direction of the “lean” arrow.
I turned the themostat two ticks leaner. I can’t test it now since there is salt all over the roads but we will see if this helps.

Comments

A real air filter for the Studebaker — 2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *