Soak breather in oil?

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hotrod swinger

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Do these breathers with a cloth filter get soaked in oil or just the ones with steel mesh?

Did my best to get a nice background shot of the engine as well.

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Only oil if you are putting a double stitch in material like jeans or maybe a Carhart jacket. Lol!
 
Soaked in oil? No. A bit of oil drizzled into the holes and the cap left upside-down for a few minutes for the oil to coat the filter element, yes.

An empty breather cap: also no, it means dirt gets drawn into the engine every second it's running. Replace that past-due breather.
 
Soaked in oil? No. A bit of oil drizzled into the holes and the cap left upside-down for a few minutes for the oil to coat the filter element, yes.

An empty breather cap: also no, it means dirt gets drawn into the engine every second it's running. Replace that past-due breather.
Mine doesn’t have all the holes at the bottom so I’m thinking the air flow is coming from the air filter hose. I see Hotrod Swinger’s oil cap does not have this hose.
 
Well, yeah, if you have a ducted breather (hose to the air filter) there won't be holes on the bottom. In that case after you slosh solvent around in there and pour it out the hose hole to clean it, and let it dry, you drizzle some oil into the hose hole and leave the breather on its side a few minutes, hose hole up, to distribute the oil.
 
Well, yeah, if you have a ducted breather (hose to the air filter) there won't be holes on the bottom. In that case after you slosh solvent around in there and pour it out the hose hole to clean it, and let it dry, you drizzle some oil into the hose hole and leave the breather on its side a few minutes, hose hole up, to distribute the oil.
I just remembered the air coming to the oil breather cap through the ducted hose does not go through air filter material. Just plain old air. Wonder why?
 
I just remembered the air coming to the oil breather cap through the ducted hose does not go through air filter material. Just plain old air. Wonder why?
That's what the filter mesh inside the cap is for. If the breather were ducted to the clean side of the air filter, it would crap up the carburetor with oily sludge under crankcase gas reversion conditions (wide-open throttle = minimal manifold vacuum to pull crankcase gas through the PCV valve), especially with a no-longer-new engine. Ducting to the dirty side of the air cleaner means eventually the air filter will get crudded up with oil, but that's considered preferable to the other. The first couple years of cars with ducted breathers—'64-'67 California cars—came with a washable wrapper around the air filter element, but this was scrapped around '68 when ducted breathers were put on all cars; it was decided, probably correctly, that people were just throwing away and not replacing the wrappers, so pointless to spend for them in the first place, especially when air filter soakdown usually wouldn't happen until the engine had enough miles on it that Chrysler no longer had to care.

Later on, in the '70s, other makers set up their ducted breathers such that they did a more elegant and effective job of keeping oil off the air filter.
 
That's what the filter mesh inside the cap is for. If the breather were ducted to the clean side of the air filter, it would crap up the carburetor with oily sludge under crankcase gas reversion conditions (wide-open throttle = minimal manifold vacuum to pull crankcase gas through the PCV valve), especially with a no-longer-new engine. Ducting to the dirty side of the air cleaner means eventually the air filter will get crudded up with oil, but that's considered preferable to the other. The first couple years of cars with ducted breathers—'64-'67 California cars—came with a washable wrapper around the air filter element, but this was scrapped around '68 when ducted breathers were put on all cars; it was decided, probably correctly, that people were just throwing away and not replacing the wrappers, so pointless to spend for them in the first place, especially when air filter soakdown usually wouldn't happen until the engine had enough miles on it that Chrysler no longer had to care.

Later on, in the '70s, other makers set up their ducted breathers such that they did a more elegant and effective job of keeping oil off the air filter.
Great explanation! Thanks!
 
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