Does anyone know of a silver bullet that makes cleaning oil bath air cleaners easier. I just spent 1 1/2 hours on an air cleaner (D7)  that probably hadn't been cleaned for some time. It was packed almost to the fill line with the oily mud cake we all love to hate. Getting it out of all the inaccesible places was a tedious nightmare.

I believe it was Cat but could been from elsewhere, but a service bulletin about making a tub with circulating cleaning fluid (kerosine I think) thru the screens. I believe it is in the old threads here. (but I have been wrong before)

Do yourself a favor and your D7 and put a dry cleaner on it, it will run better p, the engine will last a lot longer and is easier to service. One of my old Cat mechanics told me when they started putting dry cleaners on 17As those engines went from 8 to 9000 hours to 16 to 18000 hours with good servicing before overhauling, I knew of a C model 17A with almost 19000 hours that was still running fine but it was VERY well taken care off. 17afarmer

Ray54 wrote:

I believe it was Cat but could been from elsewhere, but a service bulletin about making a tub with circulating cleaning fluid (kerosine I think) thru the screens. I believe it is in the old threads here. (but I have been wrong before)
 

The screens aren't the problem. The pot under the screens was packed with oily mud from years of not being cleaned. It is really hard to get in there and clean or even see. Rinsing won't remove that kind of stuff.

Anything from a screw driver to a putty knife.

Before we changed the 3T to a dry air cleaner we took it to Stockton at Holts and had them Hot Tank it did a good job getting all the dirt and crap out of it. We used to have a 7U D4 when we put the D4D dry cleaner on it went from 3rd to 4th gear on the disk like a different tractor ever since then I have changed several things from oil to dry my take anyway. 17afarmer

This might seem a silly question, but did you remove the screens from the pot? They aren't too difficult to clean and mostly easily accessible once fully disassembled.

soak it in kerosene or solvent degreaser. is the easiest way. warm the kero helps it work better. so make your self a double pot boiler. you want to pots one big enough for the parts and a second big enough for that to sit in and a immersion heater. place the parts in the inner pot cover with kero. place that in outer pot fill it with water the turn o the heater you want to heat it to around 60 degrees just enough to get a slight simmer happening and wait for it to work.

if memory serves they have a second cup in the bowl this is removable for cleaning the really caked on stuf the only way to do it is a old screwdriver or putty knife. a old hack saw blade works well too

Yes I have taken the screens cleaned all the dirt out of the bowl steamed them, I still have a 3T that doesn’t get used with an oil bath if it were to get used very much it would get a double element cat air cleaner, an oil bath simply can’t do as good getting the fine dust out, if they are antiques that are part of a collection fine but to use them very much you will get more engine life with a dry cleaner

My question was for TOP, it sounded like cleaning was a lot more difficult than it should be. In my experience once removed and disassembled cleaning doesn't take all that long, a hit with a pressure washer makes short work of it if you have one. I don't for a second disagree with the advantages of a dry type air cleaner.