By Paul Penuel

I decided I wanted to do away with the messy oil bath filter and upgrade to a modern paper element, but I didn't want to take away the original look. What to do? Use the oil bath filter housing!

I wasn't sure how I was going to change from an oil bath to a paper element filter, but after tossing some ideas around, I thought up of a real easy way to do this. This procedure requires cutting the filter housing in two pieces,  removing all the old filter element(the fuzzy stuff), then retrofitting the top part of the housing to fit over a new paper element. Here are some pics I took while I did this.

Here shows the oiginal oil bath filter off my flathead. It comes in two pieces. the filter element fits inside the resivoir. I took the resevoir to the parts store and measered an area that the new paper filter would fit into. It was 8  1/4 by 3 inches. A Napa 2011 was a perfect snug fit. Put the new filter in the resevoir housing and push it in snug into the bottom recessed area. Then measure how deep the new filter is from the top. You will need to know this so you can cut the old filter housing in the right place.

     I took the measurements from the resevoir and marked them on the housing measuring down from the top lip. Using a small cutoff saw, I carefully cut all the way around the housing.

After the cutting was done, the housing comes apart. Look at all the fuzz! Pull all that stuff out along with the two wire mesh pieces. Clean it out real good. Chunk the lower piece in the trash.

You will need to find something to seal the new filter so air and dirt can't leak in the top. A plastic bucket lid worked good for this. Cut it the same size as the outside diameter of the paper filter. Punch a hole in the middle of it so the stud can go through.

Here is the housing sandblasted and painted. Put the filter in and place the bucket lid on top of it. You will need a piece of 1/4 inch pipe to fit over the stud and plastic bucket lid. It will hold the plastic down tight onto the filter after you put the top cover on. I cut the pipe almost two inches.

Here it is all put together. I have a modern paper filter in my flatty and you can't even see it, so I didn't loose any of the original look. This was very easy to do. Total time for all the work was maybe an hour. It was a cheap project to do, too. The new filter cost me a little over five bucks.