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Oil Breather Cap Restoration


Beemon

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There are probably better ways to do this, but this is what I did.

 

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We started by grinding the edge off the Stant caps to open them up. It was just a sponge material with no internal baffling. This was going to be our donor material until...

 

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We did the same with one of the stock caps. They were "junk anyways"... a quick few taps would knock out particulates. The kicker was this internal baffle system, which was pressed into the housing. It could be removed, but I figured it would be better to have it than not have it, just like a PCV baffle, and is probably the reason why the Stant caps make my valve covers so dirty.

 

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I calculated that with size differences, they were pretty close to the same internal volume. However, without being able to cut that plastic sponge material to stick in the breather cap, we had to source up some stainless steel wool from Home Depot.

 

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They were pretty dirty, blackened with 30 years of oil mist and littered with rust scale from the wool mesh.

 

After filling them, because the stamped lip was ground off, my dad TIG welded the top and bottom together. I guess I could have forked over some cash for "reproduction" caps, but the repros say AC OIL on them and these say OIL twice. Plus it was an excuse to drive down and see my dad, who's going through a bit of a decline. Anyways, I hope someone takes away from these photos. There's more to it than just sticking new medial in through the bottom. In hind sight, it would probably be better to slowly peel back the stamped edge and then carefully press it back around the lip.

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Looks good! Rebuilding the originals is the way to go. I guess you could peel the edge back, but I never thought I could do it and then get it back together looking good. I always ground them apart like you did, and then silver soldered or brazed them back together. I didn't have access to TIG.

 

For what its worth "Chore Girl" type scouring pads work well to replace the mesh, either the stainless or the copper. It also works for the draft tube filter in some cars.

 

stainless-steel-standard-weight-scouring

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