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Pontiac Streamliner 8 air cleaner


PhilAndrews

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Howdy, all.

 

I have a '51 Chieftain that arrived new to me without its air cleaner, so I took a dig around on Google and saw that the Streamliner eight has a nice intake muffler. I liked the idea of the engine being quieter so found one on eBay that needs a bit of restoration.

 

My question is thus; how is the filter end of the assembly supported? It's far too heavy to be only held up by the carburetor. Squinting at some pictures shows a bracket coming off one of the head bolts but I can't see under it to see how it's supported.

 

Does anybody have a photo of the support bracket assembly? I'm either going to make one or try and source one depending on the design.

 

Thank you

 

 

Phil

Edited by PhilAndrews (see edit history)
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I do believe I may have answered my own question. I continued cleaning 60-odd years of dirt from the exterior and discovered that the lower plate that the wing nut rod goes into isn't quite round, it has a fractured edge that looks about the size of the bracket on the picture.

 

Further investigation needed, but it may be a case of getting a new piece of steel welded to it.

 

Phil

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Thank you, that's exactly the angle I had needed to see!

 

Someone has replaced the bolt in that corner on my engine but with a washer underneath- trying to figure that one out right now. It doesn't have the thread on top to attach the bracket to (and then secured with the nut).

 

Phil

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You have really made that air cleaner look great but...I could not recall having one like that on my 1951 Pontiac Chieftan.  Looking at the 1951 Pontiac sales brochures on eBay confirmed my recollection of mine having the typical round oil bath air cleaner that had a support arm coming off a head bolt to the air cleaner body.  My car had a bad distributor cap when I first bought it that would cause a backfire through the carb that would in turn pop the air cleaner off the carb.  The support arm kept the filter from becoming road kill until I was able to find and fix the distributor cap problem.  Post a pic of your car, I’d enjoy seeing it.

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It is the incorrect filter for the year; the big muffler canister was ditched for 1951. I liked the idea of the intake being a little more quiet so instead of the on-top-of-the-carb type, I decided on the earlier variant.

 

20180926_220830.thumb.jpg.8c3540c705f3e0cdef3f96e96f8771b8.jpg

 

The car in question. I'm working through some of the fun problems, namely a badly done 12V conversion (retaining 12V but doing it right) and the gearbox needs to come out to have the valve block and servos seals replaced, then just regular service stuff like adjust the brakes, new steering ball joints, adjust the steering gears and fit an exhaust pipe that's not one big rusty hole.

 

Phil

Edited by PhilAndrews (see edit history)
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2 hours ago, TerryB said:

You have really made that air cleaner look great but...I could not recall having one like that on my 1951 Pontiac Chieftan.  Looking at the 1951 Pontiac sales brochures on eBay confirmed my recollection of mine having the typical round oil bath air cleaner that had a support arm coming off a head bolt to the air cleaner body.  My car had a bad distributor cap when I first bought it that would cause a backfire through the carb that would in turn pop the air cleaner off the carb.  The support arm kept the filter from becoming road kill until I was able to find and fix the distributor cap problem.  Post a pic of your car, I’d enjoy seeing it.

There were three types of air cleaners. The one with the muffler is a extra cost option. My Pop's 1950 Chieftain Deluxe that he bought new had one.

Standard one is the one on the very bottom;

Image result for 1951 Pontiac engine images

 

Image result for 1951 Pontiac engine images

Edited by Pfeil (see edit history)
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Interesting. Well, mine has the deluxe interior code and trim on the Fisher build plate, so quieter, huge muffler intake it is then!

 

20181002_181154.thumb.jpg.7baa8cf608572eb5f0441163ba17a4c7.jpg

 

Only problem is it's the cleanest part in there, especially after the radiator has been leaking and staining everything brown...

 

Phil

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It's not too bad. There's some horrors hiding it the bottoms of the doors and in front of the rear wheels, but overall it's not so bad.

 

Certainly a good starting point. It's fairly "honest", if you will.

 

I had an epiphany tonight after it was mentioned about the special bolt with the nut atop.

 

20181004_173110.thumb.jpg.523374947faa25618fd438dd834edb96.jpg

 

There we go. Torqued back down and in the correct location. It had been put in the wrong place, used to attach an assister spring for the throttle return.

 

I bought a length of steel bar, drilled a 3/8" hole in, I need to borrow a vise to bend it over to the correct shape.

 

Phil

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1 hour ago, PhilAndrews said:

It's not too bad. There's some horrors hiding it the bottoms of the doors and in front of the rear wheels, but overall it's not so bad.

 

Certainly a good starting point. It's fairly "honest", if you will.

 

I had an epiphany tonight after it was mentioned about the special bolt with the nut atop.

 

20181004_173110.thumb.jpg.523374947faa25618fd438dd834edb96.jpg

 

There we go. Torqued back down and in the correct location. It had been put in the wrong place, used to attach an assister spring for the throttle return.

 

I bought a length of steel bar, drilled a 3/8" hole in, I need to borrow a vise to bend it over to the correct shape.

 

Phil

Great! now you are in business! They are great cars!

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Hopefully. The manual says to coat the threads in white lead and oil- I cleaned them, ran them in and out a couple times then torqued them down; I'm thinking possibly I should pull them and put some sealant on them being as at least the front one goes into a water gallery?

 

Phil

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Had a little time to do some CAD (cardboard aided design) and made a start on the bracket to hold the front end of the air cleaner up.

 

20181005_172323.thumb.jpg.28f1a83031cc1228c32c352e4b699187.jpg

 

Coming along, needs a bit of adjustment on the bench and the prongs extending a little so it can clamp down more evenly onto it.

 

I picked up some aluminum mesh filter material, but I'm not sure if it'll be too coarse.

 

Phil

Edited by PhilAndrews
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Made a few adjustments. Need to clean it up properly but I think that's done.

 

20181006_211523.thumb.jpg.2a7104598f97305110526240bc17880f.jpg

 

Quiet, too!

 

Does anybody know the correct position for the return spring for the throttle mechanism? There's a point on the lever arm on the other side of the engine but I do not see anything to hook it to.

 

And, on a wild side-note, does anybody know how to remove the horn slip-ring from the column? I want to replace the wire to it.

 

Phil

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Okay, that's what I was thinking- that's the attachment point on the linkage, but I don't see anything in the far side. I'll have to get a set of steps and haul myself over the fender a bit further I think.

 

Thank you for that.

 

Phil

 

 

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It was most helpful yes! Thank you. Only little things but that's how they were designed to work; I can't see a way to improve upon it so that's where I'm an advocate of original design.

 

Little things like redoing the dash illumination with LED's however I see as an improvement that doesn't impact negatively- they hardly run warm at all, significantly less load on switches, so on. Things like that I'll change but I'm going to be asking a bunch of questions because the original engineering is in most cases perfectly adequate.

 

Phil

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On 10/4/2018 at 10:19 PM, PhilAndrews said:

Hopefully. The manual says to coat the threads in white lead and oil- I cleaned them, ran them in and out a couple times then torqued them down; I'm thinking possibly I should pull them and put some sealant on them being as at least the front one goes into a water gallery?

 

Phil

The white lead and oil compound is called litharge or pipe dope. Used to be a common item in a plumber's toolbox. You can buy a stick of pipe dope at the hardware store, or use Permatex.

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On 10/4/2018 at 10:19 PM, PhilAndrews said:

Hopefully. The manual says to coat the threads in white lead and oil- I cleaned them, ran them in and out a couple times then torqued them down; I'm thinking possibly I should pull them and put some sealant on them being as at least the front one goes into a water gallery?

 

Phil

The white lead and oil compound is called litharge or pipe dope. Used to be a common item in a plumber's toolbox. You can buy a stick of pipe dope at the hardware store, or use Permatex.

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On 10/4/2018 at 10:19 PM, PhilAndrews said:

Hopefully. The manual says to coat the threads in white lead and oil- I cleaned them, ran them in and out a couple times then torqued them down; I'm thinking possibly I should pull them and put some sealant on them being as at least the front one goes into a water gallery?

 

Phil

The white lead and oil compound is called litharge or pipe dope. Used to be a common item in a plumber's toolbox. You can buy a stick of pipe dope at the hardware store, or use Permatex.

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