The Sniper's Nest


  • Cambridge
  • Days of yesteryear

Breathe deep the gathering gloom



Picking an air cleaner



The original air cleaner was an oil bath type setup. Probably the only filter that uses oil and filters as well as it flows, imo. Problem is, it's big and bulky and I only have one. So I decided to make my own since no one made an air cleaner for a Weber IDF/IDA setup that didn't look wrong under the Cambridge's hood.



What I have to work with



Here is the throttle body I am using, well one of two that is. I need to mount the air cleaner to this.



Base plate fab



I decided to go with two housings after looking at some oval setups, none really appealed to me. I don't want to go overboard with the finned aluminum look and I would have to mod the base plate to fit. The center to center spacing of the throttle bodies was 7.5", I can run two 7" outer diameter housings with a half inch clearance in the middle. This means the base plate has to be smaller. After looking at the Wix filter lookup I went with a 6" base plate and a 4" tall housing. The base started life as a 6" pizza pan.


Wix filter lookup

Finding center



I asked my son if he knew how to find the center of a circle, he said no. Apparently, no one knows how to do that with just a compass and four arcs, video linked is the closest I found to my method. I might have to make a video. Anyway, we find center and a center line.


video

Mounting holes



First thing I did was drill the holes for the 5mm mounting bolts. These bolts are for mock up purposes right now, when we get to the outer housing you'll see the final hardware used. This is where the center line we found earlier is used. Measure the distance between the two holes, divide by two and use that distance from the center point to make your new hole center point on the centerline, one in each direction.



Yes, a 42mm hole saw



Same hole saw I used on the adapters I used to bore a hole for the throttle bore. Use scrap wood under your work piece to provide support and protect the saw from the cast iron table. Use the center point originally found to drill this hole.



All centered up



All the machine work is done, final mock up to verify everything, see how the base plate and throttle bore is concentric? that is what we want.



Done with the base plates



All that is left is to make the second base plate and paint them. We see here the base plates completed.



fitting the top mount



On the rear base plate we can see one of the Wix filters I will be using. The front base plate shows the standoffs, 5mm x 0.80, 300mm tall. Went with metric simply because that is what the throttle bodies are threaded for. The stand offs are off the shelf items used in electronics, got them from Mouser.



Cross brace



This is a piece of 3/8" aluminum U channel, in stock at Lowe's. Cut it with my miter saw using a carbide blade. The middle hole will contain a 1/4" bolt to hold the lid down. The two outer holes will be used to bolt the brace to the stand offs. Remember, measure twice, cut/drill once.



top mounting bolt mods



I used a regular 1/4-20 bolt, somewhat too long, to make the mounting bolt for the top. I ground down two sides to make a sort of T bolt out of it. This allowed the bolt head to sit inside the U channel. The bolt is held to the U channel with a lock washer and a nut on the opposite side. Later on we trim the bolt to length.



mockup and fitment check



We have the brace mocked in place and the filter installed to check fitment. The brace is longer than needed and will be trimmed later



brace final shape



All the machine work is done on the brace,, belt sander and miter saw for the metal work with some hand filing and a deburring tool to clean it up. I used a washer to draw the radii I wanted on the ends and cut the end verticals at a 45 degree angle.



top mount done



Top mount done and installed. You can see the additional clearance to the filter. All painted up and pretty.



top cover



This is what the top of my air cleaner started as, a 7"x4" cake pan. The 7" measurement is on the inside.



top cover mods



I had to remove the lips off the pan, not enough room for them and it didn't look right with them on. Used the table saw with a carbide blade. Centers of the tops were found the same way as was done on the bases and a hole was drilled for the mounting bolt to pass through.



top cover done



Deburred the edges and holes, prepped and painted the covers. Trimmed the mounting bolt so that two threads showed above the wing nut when installed. Every thing clears and works just fine, so far. You might wonder why I made my own air filter housings. I didn't like the very small round and louvered chrome air cleaners out there. I didn't want to over do the finned aluminum look and I wanted something that looked like it belonged. I think this is it, but until it's on the engine we really won't know.



You've been sniped


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