Oil Bath air cleaners: you either love 'em or hate 'em. I am in the latter camp, and the cleaner on this truck was only in maybe fair condition when I bought it. Following posts by others, I converted my OEM housing to accept a paper element.

Lid (top view)



Lid (left); base w/oil reservoir & snorkel (right)





Lid & filter material (bottom view)



Base & oil reservoir



First, I cut out the base's inner tub that contains the oil. Cutting away the base's oil tub -- Dremel work. This left holes (shown) which I epoxied closed later. The newly exposed curved surface is the new bottom seal surface for the paper element.




Next, I used a Sawzall on the lid as a gross cut to remove the bulk of the filter material, Burnt/damaged area of the Excelsior filter material is visible on the right:




This left another inch or so to be removed from the bottom of the lid. The Sharpie dashed lines were an approximation of where the final cut should be. This was kind of a guess, as I wanted the inside ring to clamp the top of the paper element, but not expose a whole lot of gap between the lid and base, because most of the air is supposed to run through the snorkel.




How to cut that flat/parallel? Dremel & jig.














The bearing on the angle bracket kept the cutoff wheel in (approximately) one plane. I used the X-axis on the X-Y table to control DOC, and spun the lid by hand slowly for feed. This worked rather well. A 30-second video of this operation is here. I've since purchased a couple of slitter wheels and an arbor, so if I had to do it again, I might try using a slitter in the spindle instead of a cutoff wheel in the Dremel.












Once cut to final height, I installed some slitted fuel line (Gates 27000 1/8” ID, 5/16” OD) on that sharp sheet metal edge (ends glued via black RTV). That provided a good sealing surface for the top of the paper element, and prevents it from cutting the element's topside coating.






The rubber seal on the inside/top stack was in two pieces when I bought it, but it's no longer needed in this modification, as the lid no longer seals there and I removed them (though I see they're still shown in the pic above).

The element used is NAPA 6241 (Wix 46241).

The bottom, carb-to-cleaner seal was in bad condition as well. I hand-straightened the folded sheet metal via needle-nose pliers as best I could (this pic is "before").




I tried a couple of different gaskets; notably, Moroso 97331 did not fit well, but I ended up stacking two Dash 251 o-rings together (square-cut, -251, 5-1/8” ID x 5-3/8” OD x 1/8” thk. $2.72 ea, $9.95 shipping, +tax = $16) to achieve the correct thickness/compression against the carb's top flange. I glued one to the cleaner base using RTV again. The nuts gave me an easy way to provide some clamping force while the RTV set up, without having a circular clamp jig handy (or fab'ing one):







Jug o'coolant for clamp weight.




The second o-ring (square section) sits on the carb's top. The carb top flange has a circular projection that aligns the cleaner base to it, so the rings stack align nicely.




I had the exterior of the lid and base bead-blasted for a very reasonable price by a local, then rattle-can'd it using Rustoleum Primer+Black. I don't have a good picture of the result, only one after it's been run a while and has gotten dusty again (below).

The hold-down stud is 7/16", so I found some rubber plumbing gaskets with an appropriate center hole, a flat washer, and a 7/16 wing nut to match.

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The snorkel had been missing all of its guts except the waxstat, and I had a rather long search to find one that had both the straight snorkel (not "drop" inlet) and correct hose (round, not oval), and still had its guts. Many I found had no flap remaining. I finally located an air cleaner "snorkel" with all its parts intact. As a bonus, its waxstat works, so I don't need to use my old one (which I never tested, because: missing parts like the actuator rod, two springs, and the flap). I picked this up yesterday:











I washed it off in the kitchen sink with a scrub brush, and tested operation using hot water:
105° = flap closed
130° = flap open

Then, I mounted it to the cleaner base. Interestingly, my '72 uses 5/16" hex screws, while the donor truck -- a '75 -- used 7/16" (1/4-20) screws. I guess Ford found the smaller screws didn't hold the snorkels on well?

Now, I finally have the OEM intake setup in working condition. These old snorkels are getting hard to find, I found. While I would've loved to have bead blasted the snorkel too, I don't have a batch of stuff ready to be blasted, and it's too small of a job to be worth the coin for me for this truck right now.

 

Thermostat

I'd had a weeping leak at the t-stat housing when I bought the truck Feb2024, and I repaired it -- replacing the thermostat -- but I didn't remember to post it . . . I like to be able to refer to stuff later . . .

Both 5/16" bolts broke off, of course:


Note the housing's bypass port runs both to the water pump bypass and to a blocked-off hose. I haven't figured out where that blocked hose is supposed to go . . .



Skipping ahead, here's the inlet to the bypass port. You can see the outlet to the water pump bypass hose (at 1 o'clock) and the blocked hose at 4 o'clock:




Thermostat & gaskets for my '73:

Lower gasket = D1PZ-8255-A, Motorcraft RG-24-A, "Water Outlet Gasket", NAPA THM 1040-ST (2040-ST?) $2.17 (Mar2024)
Upper gasket = C8PZ-8255-V, Motorcraft RG-25, via eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/171866057235, $3.22
Thermostat:
Mine had an D2TE-8575-HA installed, and I replaced it with an NOS Motorcraft RT-147 (D0TZ-8575-A), 175°, $26 via eBay (Feb2024)






The old t-stat had a jiggler air bleed; the RT-147 I got didn't:




The RT-147 I received has a bypass port blocking plate:








But at least one RT-147 is being sold that has a much smaller bypass blocker:





A bit of the heat wrench and I was able to extract both broken bolts:

 

When I bought this truck in Feb2024, someone had clamped on one of those aftermarket universal turn signal switch units we used to see so often back in the day.




And a bat-wing switch on the dash to enable it. It was . . . not great. I never did find anything wrong with the OEM turn signal switch; when I reconnected it, it worked fine.

New front lights wiring was casually draped around the engine compartment (all un-fused, or course):



And they'd drilled holes in the fender tops and mounted these round things:



Similar new wires were run to the rear lights for no readily apparent reason, and someone had drywall-screwed in these LED modules which were not in great shape -- hoist beds are hard on rear lights:


I cut out all the after-install lighting wiring, leaving the OEM stuff for repair; almost all of the OEM wiring and connectors were just fine.

I got the old TS switch out, and while it worked OK for TS/Stop the horn ring spring contacts area was broken. As it happens, this design was fairly weak, and Ford upgraded the plastic around the horn contacts in a later revision (see this post for pictures and part Nos.), so I obtained another, later used one and replaced it.



With the TS switch replaced, the horn worked. I then had to find replacement front fender lights; eBay provided someone selling NORS lights, but only for the left side, so I bought two, took one apart and managed to reverse the guts so it'd work on the right side. Signal-Stat 4853 was what I'd bought.





When someone removed the original front lights, they'd also removed the reinforcement brackets that mount on the underside of the fenders and prevent fatiguing and cracking the fenders. I ran an ad here and someone helpfully sold and shipped me a pair from a truck they were parting out.











I did have to run separate ground wires (not OEM) from the lamps' 1/4-20 mounting studs to the radiator support for consistent operation.





That took care of the fronts, but the rears had to be replaced as well. I tried to salvage the OEM housings and just buy replacement lenses, but they were really too far gone for my use, so I bought some universal aftermarket LED truck assemblies, LBL-R16W18-K, around $100 for a pair. Then I cut the pigtails from the OEM assys. and connected them to the new units.



















That, plus a whole lot of replacement round marker lights, finished the turn signals/stop lamps . . .



. . . or so I thought. Shortly, the turn signals stopped blinking. The OEM flasher relay was really flaky. I replaced it, and all was well. Info and pics for that side project are here.

And, yes, the reverse lights work!

 

Of the four small gauges, three require a voltage regulator to operate -- the ammeter is direct-acting and doesn't, but the Temp, Oil, and Fuel gauges do. The ammeter worked when I bought the truck, but none of the others, so I knew where to look first. This voltage regulator was a common wear item back in the day (and still is, I guess). Ford isn't the only mfgr to use this thing. It's a mechanical ON/OFF bimetal-and-heater affair, very cheap to make back then, and it doesn't really regulate voltage the way we think of it today. Think of it as a temperature-regulated turn signal flasher relay, and the gauges are heating elements that move so slowly that they effectively average out the ON/OFF pulses of this "voltage regulator". If you ever run into a situation where all of your gauges read low or high, this is usually the culprit too.

Removing the cluster requires disconnecting the speedo & tach cables by Braille, but the two plastic electrical connectors can be disconnected with the cluster pulled away from the dash a bit, as well as the Wiper Switch connector.

In the pic below, the voltage regulator is just below and to the right of the speedometer two-speed gearbox (if your truck doesn't have a two-speed rear axle, then this little electric gearbox won't be present):








After some vacuuming:






My cluster had been out a few times over the decades, and the clips and screws to retain it to the dash were mostly missing. I used these to replace them all. These were in an assortment at my NAPA, but are possibly Au-Ve-Co numbers:






Someone had been into this before and taped-up the voltage regulator:




I replaced it with one from Maryland Mustang via eBay for $30 but they can be had from many different vendors. This is a common vintage Ford failure item:




My gauges were pretty dirty, so now was the time to vacuum and Q-Tip them:















I didn't refinish the front, as this is a work truck that I bought for a specific project, not to collect, but you can see how this would be straightforward to restore when it's out like this.

I replaced every lamp in the cluster with new ones. This is a bit of a challenge, as there are many different ones in use.



Lamps I didn't already have and had to buy or order:

• 1895
• 1445
• 1815 (Wiper indicator)
• 97 (cab marker lights)

The Headlight Switch's dimmer wasn't providing any juice to the lamps for night use. Removed, I could see that there was too much play in the ceramic rheostat and the wiper wasn't touching it anymore.





I replaced the switch with an Echlin HL6641 (NAPA):



Removing the Ford switch from the dash has, I'm sure, been covered hundreds of times, it does involve two pieces of knowledge to remove, search on "remove old Ford headlight switch" for details. The electrical connector is often challenging, and sometimes it's charred -- especially on later models!

 

This truck was originally a grain truck, campaigned in Eastern Washington. I bought it from a family roofing company (father & son), and there were more than a few nails in the tires, which I carefully removed.

 

This truck has an Eaton 16244 2-Speed rear axle, and the RR axle flange has been weeping, with bits of gasket hanging out the sides.



The generic illustration in Section 10 (Brakes, etc.) shows a singe gasket 1001 behind the axle flange . . .




But when you dig into the Eaton 2-Speed axle in Section 40 (Rear Axle), two gaskets 1001 and a seal plate 1181 are revealed:



(Note: this view is in the Section 40 of Illustrations for the 73/79 MPC, but is not shown in the same section of the 80/89 MPC, nor in the Section 10. Go figure.)

One clue is the "AR" (as req'd) for the quantity. The gaskets are A8TZ-1001-C (more info and pics are in this post) because this truck has the Axle Code E2 = Eaton 16244, 17,500 capacity, and the axles have (8) holes with about 6+" gasket OD (tape measure accuracy):




I need two of these gaskets for each axle flange plus an oil seal B9T-1181-A. A modern seal seems to be best sourced as SKF/CR 25160, either via NAPA or Amazon:




I bought the SKF kit 25160.








I first cleaned off the hub and removed the nuts:



Then I had to tap tap tap and work out the cone spacers . . .

This axle flange uses 1/2" NF studs, and has tapered cone spacers "axle shaft stud adapters" to locate the axle and transfer torque from the axle to the hub.











These things are expensive, like $20 each expensive, so I was careful not to lose them.
The last guy in this didn't install the seal plate 1181 at all, only a badly-fitting gasket. I cleaned up the gasket surfaces, dressed some dings that the last guy left on the mating surfaces, using a small mill file, installed the new gaskets and seal plate, cleaned up and lubricated the cone adapters and reassembled. New 1/2" GR8 split lock washers, torqued to 60 lb/ft.















Unusually warm weather today, in the low 50s, and no rain for a few hours, made this outdoor job pretty reasonable to accomplish.

 

Lots of helpful pictures and part numbers in this thread.

 

Last August, I picked up some new GVWR stickers, two for $7 from:
https://dotnumberstore.com/products/...ght-decal-12x2