I know I asked on another board about this. I live where it is extremely humid. An example would be to tell you I changed my wet air filter oil in August. I have not used the tractor since. I went out today and it would crank and would not fire. I then put a squirt of starting fluid and it putted for a second but would not start. Did this two more times. Drained the tank bottom then the filter petcock. Small amount of water in both. I then tried to remove the air filter at the bottom where the oil sits. I would not come off. I had to head it with a torch while melting the ice to get it to drop. Had to take it inside to get the bottom thawed to get that piece out. There was another solid piece going up that I ripped out. Took a small amount of the metal steel wool with me, for lack of a better term to describe the metal shaving type stuff in the housing that helps add surface area for the oil to splash on and contact the air. The top piece was about 4 cups of ice. With the filter off, I cranked it and it started right up. I let it run since it was snowing and dust was pretty much none. I put new oil in the bath part and put the filter back together. Has anyone else removed the wet air filter? I was told not to do it but screwing around with this in the cold is getting old. Any suggestions/photos would be appreciated.
a 580B with an oil-type air filter? That's a new one on me. all the case part diagrams show the 580B with a paper filter. The oil-type air filter draws oil into the steel wool as well, which is why it's not a good idea to run the filter without it. With most of the oil-type filters, the filter media is sealed in (spot-welded), and I know the Massey Ferguson 202 manual tells you to just replace the whole assembly if running solvent through it won't unplug it.
Definitely not a replace the whole unit type. They would never have embossed fill to here in both cups with oil on the bottom canister with the thumbscrew. After the nice six hours of plowing I did today with it, I am sure the engine heat melted the water and dropped it into my nice new oil in the bath portion. Ill get you a photo when it gets above freezing here.
The steel wool gives the filter its surface area. Because it is spotwelded in, it cannot be changed out, hence the note to replace the whole assembly if the steel wool gets plugged. They allow for the oil to be changed out because that is the stuff that actually catches the dirt. This explains the function of the oil-bath air filter Because of the work the filter does, that oil needs to be changed out at regular intervals - every 10 hours under steady use, maybe once a month with intermittent work. If water is a huge problem, I would look at attempting to convert it to a paper air filter. There should be few issues with retrofitting a Donaldson air cleaner (Ebay search) onto the tractor.
Thanks for the lead.