223 vent question
 

one pic shows line running into lower end of engine, mine goes into top of air cleaner..which is correct? both? my PCV is routed like top pic. thanks for the picture Gary! hope you don't mind...

What year engines are these? My '59 F350 doesn't have any vent pipes coming out of the valve cover.

my truck, bottom picture, is a 1960 and engine is original

I wonder if it was part of an option package, or just a '60 thing? I know
my '59 still has the original engine also.

Maltman, yours is probably more correct, as you want the air going into the crankcase to be filtered. Gary's may have had the air cleaner cover changed at some point, his hose will just let unfiltered air into the crankcase. Fresh air goes from the air cleaner into the valve cover. It circulates into the crankcase, and is sucked out of the former road draft tube connection, through the PCV valve into the intake manifold.

thank you, that makes sense and clears it up for me. do you think the hose in Gary's picture isn't hooked up to anything and just hanging there?

I'd bet on it just hanging there, since there's no fitting on those blocks there, and that's a water jacket.
I always thought the tube from the valve cover to the air cleaner was just to blow positive crankcase fumes through the carb and out the tailpipe.

that's where I was confused. the way it twists...that sucker looked hooked up to me.

Yours is hooked up correctly, it's fresh air for the PCV system. I don't think the system came on 1960's or earlier as standard equipment but at some point in time we were forced to retrofit earlier cars with them, at least in California. But those days are getting foggy in my old memory.

good to know, thanks. I asked because my engine is so sludgy...

Thanks Jim, I'm old, but not too old to learn something, which I do about every time I visit this site!

If your engine hasn't been rebuilt in the last 10-15 years using the newer oils it is quite common for the old engines to be slugged up. It's cause by old paraffin type oils they had back in the day, they didn't call it Quaker Sludge for nothing and combined with 160 degree thermostats didn't help. I rebuilt mine the last time in about 1998 and it has 80,000 miles on it now and is as clean as a whistle.

I should have made a more complete answer. The fresh air comes in from the air cleaner through the valve cover. What ever crank case gasses / blow by comes out where the road draft tube is and is plumbed via a PCV valve and another rubber hose into the intake manifold.

right on Jim. I have been waiting for a clear answer for a while. anything I can do without rebuilding? engine runs fine. and I have never used qwacker state...

I personally wouldn't recommend doing anything. Anything you do to try to break up the sludge you stand a chance of getting in places you don't want it, like bearings and oil passages. As long as the engine is running fine I wouldn't be overly concerned about it and deal with at the point the engine needs rebuilding sometime in the future.