carrier air cleaner

[jeff davis]

need photos of the carrier air cleaner i am now running a oil bath
in the maintanance manual it says the cleaner is of the dry type but there is no photo or line drawing .
jeff

[Stewart Loy]

Jeff,

Your old friend the Universal Carrier did indeed employ an oil bath air cleaner to breath.

Use the same oil as your engine uses, and change at the same interval - or more often if used in dusty conditions.

This, and much more is in the Carrier operators manual. That crusty old curmudgeon Alex Blair in Ottawa has them as Operating Instructions and Workshop Manual - Universal Carrier Mark I* (Canadian), the "UC-F1".


Stewart

[jeff davis]

Ive picked up a copy of a manual for the carrier mk1 built for the british army and it states
AIR CLEANER
The air cleaner is of the dry type mounted horizontaly above the carburator and utilizing a cylindrical felt to filter air. To prevent colapse of the filter the felt is reinforced with a series of wire rings giving a spring effect which is held in an extended position by means of a plate over the cylinder to which is attached a handle.

I dont get it,or is this from an early manual
jeff

[Stewart Loy]

Jeff,

My pal John Adamiak ( host of the prestigious West End BBQ that is held this year on August 14 near Acton, Ontario ) made a copy of that manual for me. It is the "Instruction Book, Universal Carrier MkI*, First Edition. Built for the British War Department". As you have noted that publication does reference the dry air cleaner. I could not see a date of publication on this work.

The "Operators Manual Carrier, Universal No.2, Mark II*" dated September 1944 claims:

Air Cleaner

Check mounting to make certain the cleaner is not loose and that no air leaks are present.

1. Loosen wing nuts on each side of cleaner.
2. Rotate oil cup slightly and remove.
3. Wash sump in fuel.
4. Refill with three pints of engine oil.
5. Replace oil cup and tighten wing nuts.

Only in rare instances where an air cleaner has been badly neglected is it necessary to wash the filter element, as the movement of oil keeps it washed clean.

If my memory serves me our Dutch friend Dirk Leekvater supplied me with a nice oil bath air cleaner the last time I saw him at Beltring, 3 years ago. He had more of the filet elements, and I see that he also has replacement instruction stickers for the side of them. His site has plenty of the good stuff that the CMP buff needs.

I hope this helps,


Stewart

[jeff davis]

Thanks i was just running a oil bath air cleaner but came across the refrence to the dry type and wondered what one looked like
and to what type or when the use was discontinued ,also I thought the dry type whould depending on placement suppy
cooler air than the oil bath. after a couple of hours running the carrier seems to lose some of its power and I thought it mite be due to hot air being reserculated.
regards jeff

[Tboss]

Somehow, I was left wondering about the Prestigious BBQ. How successful are the universal air filters as applied to the BBQ apparatus? Now I have read about car motors being used to cook food. Are there photos of the Universal motor used to BBQ? Then it might be worth the drive to Acton! Just an image that flashed and faded out.

[rob love]

The earliest carriers did have dry air cleaners located on the engine cover just above the engine. I saw the remnants of a couple of these aircleaners on some early mk1s we dug out of a beach about 6 years ago. The early cdn parts (FUC-1) manual will shed more light on where the serial number break occurred but by memory I think it was around #1200. Edited to add: FUC gives a changeover serial of #5788. The later oil bath style was also available as a retrofit to replace the earlier bellows air cleaner. See illustraions on p 104 and 106 of FUC-3.

[Mike Kelly]

The VOKES concertina air cleaners were standard kit on many early WW2 British vehicles . I have a few here , the aussie LP carriers used them too .

You cleaned them by pushing the end in and out , this would cause the element to concertina or squash down , releasing the dust . The element was felt . Years ago a WOT2 here was running one , but the felt had deteriorated with age , it slowly clogged up the carby with bits of felt ! We discovered that a modern paper cartridge filter element out of some tractor would fit right in , so that solved that .

Mike

[Andrew Morrison]

Have some background information on the British use of Air Cleaners that might be of interest.

This is from a report titled Armoured Fighting Vehicles in the Mediterranean Theatre 1939 - 1945. It was completed in 1945 based on Mediterraneen Area AFV Technical reports nos 1 to 27, covering Libya and Italy from 1939 to 1945:

As a result of unfortunate experiences near Mersa Matruth in 1935, during the Abyssinan crisis the British Army were alive to the dust menance and was provided with fairly effective air cleaners for its vehicles. These were the 'concertina type' and consisted of a series of felt rings sewn together along their inner and outer peripheries to form a concertina-like tube. One end was closed and the other connected by pipe to the carburettor intake. All aspirated air had to pass through the felt and periodical cleaning was effected by pumping the concertina and thus blowing the accumulated dust off the outer surface.

For ordinary use these cleaners were reasonably effective but it was found that the finest type of alluvial dust would pass the felt and thus led to oil contimination and heavy cylinder wear.

In consequence, the M.E. authorities condemed the felt element type of cleaner anf themselves began various experiments with oil-bath types. Despite the inventors fondness for his child, none of these locally made cleaners proved in the long run to be really satisfactory, mainly owing to oil carry-over and it was not until the vokes 2-stage cleaner was introduced on Crusader that the situation was brought properly under control.

The objection to the simple type of oil bath cleaner such as fitted to the Matilda and some Valentine was that on test, it did not give as high an efficiency figure as the felt element pattern and, furthermore, when the oil became saturated with dust it ceased to clean and gave no warning of having done so.

The Vokes 2-stage cleaner put an end to the argument and was generally accepted as the best to date. This appliance consists of an initial vortex which deposits the larger granules by centrifugal action: the air then passes over a succession of weirs in an oil bath which trap the finer grains. The efficiency was high and there was little or no trouble from oil carry-over. However, such was the volume of dust which had to be dealt with that these cleaners required clearing every 50 miles.

An interesting sidelight of this period was the capture of an enemy document in which the writer complained about the oil bath cleaners fitted to German tanks and asked why they could not have something similar to the excellent felt cleaners used by the British.

U.S tanks all had oil-bath cleaners of varying degrees of efficieny, the precise merits being somewhat obscured by commercial propoganda on the part of theatre representatives of the manufacturing firms.

[Dusonn]

In behalf of PetrB:
"Here are few pics of "Vokes oil bath filter" as used on the later carriers (and mine). The whole inside surface is tinned.
Hopefuly could be useful."

[Dusonn]

More pics of the Vokes filter

[Petr Brezina]

Hi, got another pattern of Vokes air filter, so here are the pictures for reference.

[Petr Brezina]

More pictures

[Lynn Eades]

I have one like the last one, but the outlet (same shape) is held to the filter housing by a single bolt going through at the little flat into a "bar" that has a threaded hole at its centre, that sits across the hole inside the filter housing.
Make sense?
I believe the Loyd filter is the same, with a different shaped (and longer) outlet.
Nice pictures guys. Thank you for posting.

[jeff davis]

Hey thanks for the reply .i knew someone would come through .
Unfortunately a little late looking at photos and this resembles some parts that went to the scrapers .
Regards
Jeff

[ajmac]

Yes the majority of Loyds had the Vokes oil bath type, however the early TPCs and TS&Cs did have the steel tube version with cotton element which this post originally talked about.

I am on the look out for a Vokes to fit the Loyd.

[Mark Pearson]

Here is one of the early ones I have.