Littleredrig
Registered User
I have a 7.3 IDI STOCK Air Cleaner…can anyone tell me exactly what that little valve on the top of the Air cleaner lid is for ? Looks like the same valve used on a tire rim.
Wow I learned more from you in a couple of days then I have in a few years… thank you so much for all the information… It all makes sense… I’ve been taking notes lol….I do understand about the Soup Bowl… but what I was talking about was this restrictor plate on the left part of the inner air cleaner, it sits right in front of where the Air comes in… I heard that Ford made it as well for a noise dampener… And I’m not sure just to leave it alone or cut it off ?If you’re talking about the big metal bowl shap on the bottom of the lid, people on here have posted mixed results with cutting it off. I did it on mine years ago before I put the first turbo on. I’m sure it didn’t hurt anything but I can’t say it really helped much. If I had been using the truck to tow heavy loads at the time or running the truck above 3k rpm often then maybe I would have noticed a difference but making sure your injection pump is working correctly and timed properly and the injectors cracking at the correct pressure is way more effective at making sure the engine is performing at its peak. That and a clean air filter and good high flowing exhaust but I think you’ve got that covered already.
As for the drain tube, yes that’s to drain any water that may come into the intake when driving in the rain if the complete intake snorkel is installed. Along that line, make sure your cowl seal is in good shape and not letting water puddle on the lid of your air cleaner. The wing bolt in the middle doesn’t seal well and water will leak past and run down into the back cylinders causing hydro lock and significant damage.
That’s very smart… I do have my cold air return running to the front just behind the front light assembley…If anything did get in there it would hit that plate first….Never even thought of that….Thanks again for your help… This has been quite helpful, there has been quite a few blogs I have seen… and a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.I never removed mine and I can't see how removing that would help much. You could measure the cross sectional area of intake tube and then measure the cross sectional area of the opening between the edge of the plate and the outer housing and see if it's significantly different. If you do remove it, that area of your air cleaner will get wetter and clogged faster than the rest of the air cleaner but probably not to a detrimental extent. Maybe a wasp or cicada or rock or other foreign object could possibly come hurdling through the intake and poke a hole in the filter if that's not there?? Seems unlikely but maybe. Try removing it, but only after you've scrounged up another one just in case.
To be honest I don't know what it might be called. It's unlikely that you will find it by it's technical name after all these years unless it was a ford serviceable part by itself. Maybe one of the old timers here has an idea but not me. The best place to start is a local wrecking yard. Often, if you don't know of yards near by you can use car-part.com to find yards in your area that have similar year truck that may still have parts you need on them. You can try posting a want ad here on OB in the parts for sale section. If anyone still has one floating around I doubt it would cost you much more than the postal cost.What is the Ford technical name for the drainage tube on the bottom of the air cleaner ? .....Im trying to find where I can find this big U shaped clip that holds the piece in place…I lost mine and not even sure where to begin to look ?
This doesn't surprise me in the least. These engines were designed back when International was a premier engine builder that didn't have much competition in the marketplace and they used old school engineers to really pay attention and design solutions to such things. Of course IMHO the best solution to get air into the engine is a turbo. I bet they spent as much engineering effort on that soup bowl and deflector plate as they could have on the turbo system that the aftermarket created and they later adopted.I was talking to a Ford Mechanic today who worked on these Air cleaners for years…He was saying that, since the engine is Naturally Aspirated….The challenge was to get air per unit volume to be evenly distributed throughout the engine IH & ford designed the restrictor plate for that very reason…that when outside air was drawn in from the motor…it would hit the plate and would go to the Left and to the right of the Air cleaner and circle around the soup bowl, which purpose was to create a Vortex and Air velocity, so that the Air entering the Intake manifold would be distributed to the left side and right side cylinders properly to get “ consistent” Air flow to each cylinder…