Scout 80/800 oil bath air cleaner-BEWARE

[RobG]

Cut apart the original oil bath air cleaner today on my 68-800 in order to convert it to dry type. I'm glad I did. The inside of the filter is supposed to be filled with steel wool to capture the oil mist off of the oil bath and then the dirt that gets past the oil bath is captured in the steel wool. There were a couple of wads of it packed together each about the size of a walnut. The rest of the canister was empty. If this is typical of these filters at their age I think their filtering ability is just about shot. I don't know how common this is but I would be willing to bet there are a lot of people with oil bath air filters thinking they are working when they are only getting a small percentage of the filtration they need.

Rob gimmel

 

[Robert Kenney]

I'd bet what you found is real common especially if water has been at work. Leave one of these unprotected and the base will fill up with water.

I found a rotten mess on mine thus the cut up and dry conversion.