D7 17A Buy clean air and keep it clean

Since the machine is down for blade repairs I decided to look into the problem of fitting a pint jar to the air intake precleaner dust cup fitting.

A narrow mouth pint jar won't do it, thats for sure. A tad bit small.

I took off the precleaner and found it was a little dirty inside.

The precleaner is a lot lighter now after a lot of scraping, poking and pressure washing. I wonder if I will notice a difference in power.

Maybe it is time to drop the oil bath and clean this tube out.

My guess is that the absence of the precleaner cup led to a lot of this heavy dust taking the easy route down into the oil bath.

Try a wide-mouth pint mason jar - if you can still find them. - cts

I am kind of curious about the RING 5B3323. What is that exactly? On mine there is a metal ring with a 'V' shaped cross section. The parts book drawing doesn't show the "RING".

Hi Top,

5B3323 is a black O ring (3" id x .188" section) that seals the jar to the pre-cleaner.

Cheers,

Eddie B.

Thanks Eddie B.
I guessed as much but the particulars eluded me.

At the end of the day my effort to "Buy clean air and keep it clean" ended up like this:

1. I cleaned out the precleaner with manual tools and a pressure washer.

2. I freed up the thumbscrew and clamp bolt that were both rusted.

3. I straightened the air horn on the precleaner as it had a nasty dent in one side and was tilted, likely due to something falling on it.

4. I pounded out as much of the dent as I could manage and I think what I accomplished was critical for getting the swirl working to throw dust to the collector bottle.

5. I made my own collector bottle on a 3d printer and got it to fit up tight and I think seal without the oring that I didn't have being necessary.
   

6. I cleaned out the down tube into the oil bath.

The $64,000 question is why does oil go up the tube and collect dust?

The down tube before cleaning.

Bending the air horn back to level without damaging anything else.

Test fitting the prototype dust collector jar.

Done and ready for testing. If it works I will print it in a better material as this material might not take the heat.

Top - that is using the tools at hand and the knowledge to do so! Thanks for sharing that thought and your progress. When you get it all done and it works, you might consider posting the information to the library (code?) - those jars were used on many models. -- cts

I don't know if this would answer your question about why the oil travels up the air intake tube - the design of the oil-bath aircleaner has the air coming down that tube, and then travelling up through the mesh, taking the oil from the bath with it and mixing that air with the oil in the mesh, with the dirt-laden oil dropping back into the bowl. Perhaps there is an opening at the top that enables a small amount of oil to migrate into the downtube, and, over time, that oil will migrate up the tube in a creeping action, or perhaps it just migrates up the tube from the bottom.

Also, the original clear plastic jar that many substitute a mason jar for ( I have one bought new from Cat (or Florin) in the past ten years some time) has a steel ring, kind of like a massive circlip/o-ring combo that was used to bind the jar to the precleaner using the clamp. I don't think that's the ring listed in the parts catalog - as Eddie wrote, that's the o-ring seal. Next time I get to my tractor, I'll get a photo of it.