Oil Bath Pre-Cleaners

RPO K47, Heavy Duty Oil Bath Air Cleaner, first became available in the mid-1963 model year. This is how it appeared on cars:

K47 Heavy Duty Oil Bath Air Cleaner (mid 1963 to mid 1964 cars)
K47 1963 Car Assembly Manual

At some point thereafter, it also became available for Forward Control (FC) vehicles, and looked like this:

Oil Bath pre-cleaner in FC

by early 1964 model year, it was also available for AC cars:

1964 AC with Oil Bath Pre-Cleaner
K47 with Air Conditioning – 1964 Car Assembly Manual
This is the air intake tube for 1964-65 AC cars with Oil Bath pre-cleaner

Mid-1964, the system was redesigned for non-AC car and also added for Turbo cars:

Mid-1964: 2nd Car Design (Non-AC, Non-turbo)
Mid-1964 – 2nd Design: Assembly Manual
Mid 1964: K47 with Turbo – 1964 Car Assembly Manual

Design changes were only slightly altered for 1965:

1965 Hose Detail: for non-AC cars: 1965 Assembly Manual
Oil Bath Air Cleaner Detail for non-AC cars – 1965 Assembly Manual
Turbo with Oil Bath Air Cleaner

AC car oil bath design was essentially the same as for 1964:

1965 car with K47 and A/C
1965 AC: Assembly Manual

In 1966, the changes in Air conditioning eliminated the need for the separate AC version of K47, so from 1966-69 the 1965 non-AC version was the only one used.

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Bill Hubbell

SCG President and Founder

One Comment:

  1. hi bill. nice pics.
    the one photo caption- fc and wagon- should be revised to just fc. the oil bath units did not become available until 1963 model year, so no wagons would have been factory equipped as such.
    mechanically however, all the parts pieces from an fc oil bath would fit on a wagon, so it would be possible to add such a unit if an owner desired to do so.
    lc

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