|
It might help you to understand how that filter works. Up inside that fire extinguisher sized can is a mesh of metal that looks a lot like a metal dish scritchie thing you'd find in the kitchen. As soon as the engine starts and begins pulling air, it sucks up the oil onto that metal mesh. Air only goes percolating through the pool of oil on startup. As soon as it's pulled up onto the mesh, the level in the cup is dropped, and air flows over it instead. Now the air is flowing through that oil coated mesh, and the dirt gets stuck on the oil. Sounds just like a K&N filter, doesn't it? It's the same method of filtering. When you turn the tractor off, the dirty oil drips off the mesh down into the cup. The dirt settles to the bottom, and relatively clean oil is sucked up onto the mesh the next time you start the engine. The dirt that settles down into the bottom of the cup is why you need to clean it out occassionally. Some oil does get sucked off the mesh and into the engine. That's why the oil level goes down gradually. Ford recommended engine oil for the oil bath filter. That works just fine. A true filter oil (which is stickier) works better and costs a whole lot more, but really is unnecessary. Don't put something like gear oil in there, as it's too viscous to get drawn up into the mesh, and your tractor may well not start as it can't draw air through the pool of heavy oil sitting in the cup.
| 
