RE: [MV] Oil bath vs Dry element air filter

From: Tony Castagno (tonycastagno@verticalthought.com)
Date: Wed Mar 26 2003 - 04:10:01 PST


Bjorn,

I can speak to the air filters on M1A1 tanks and my experience in the
first Gulf War. I was a M1A1 platoon leader. The M1 tank uses 4 air
filters... one a big flat sieve looking thing I believe was called a
scavenger and then three "V" packs that sat under that. They were all
dry element. The Scavenger was usually just removed and banged on the
rear tank deck to clean since its role was to get larger dirt and small
debris. The V packs could be banged but it was best to blow them with
compressed air. To accomplish this one or two of the tanks in each
platoon was fitted with a MWO air take off on the engine to provide
compressed air through a hose and wand assembly. The particles that
were left on the deck after cleaning were as fine as flour. We would
clean the filters on every halt or several times a day. We would lay
something over the open holes to stop blowing sand but you are right you
really couldn't do it in a Shimal like we are seeing in Iraq currently.
Luckily during our run through Iraq, I was with 2-4 div cavalry 24th
Mech ID the storms had mostly subsided.

On another filter subject we switched from Diesel to Jet A-1 sometime
during Desert Shield the Jet A-1 cleaned out the system but because of
this we had to changed the fuel filters a few times, typical symptom was
serious power loss from the clogged filters. Additionally we blew up an
engine by using the smoke generator system with Jet A-1. That is one
disadvantage of that fuel since the generator system injects fuel into
the exhaust manifold. Diesel makes a great covering smoke but the Jet
A-1 burns hot and explodes.

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Military Vehicles Mailing List [mailto:mil-veh@mil-veh.org] On
Behalf Of Bjorn Brandstedt
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 6:42 AM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: [MV] Oil bath vs Dry element air filter

Hi list,
Does anybody know how oil bath air filters compare to dry element ones
in a
sand storm environment? Seeing the news from Iraq makes one wonder if
the
air filter issue was properly addressed. One reporter mentioned that air

filters had to be changed constantly... Opening the air filter canister
in a
dust storm probably doesn't help either. Now if the air filter was
somewhere
inside the cab of the vehicle, then it could be replaced without getting

blowing dust/sand in the canister while making the change.
It must be almost hopeless to try to repair an engine in a dust storm
(David
Bloom's report). Perhaps a shelter would be filled with dusty air as
well.
Just wondering.

Bjorn
MVPA 19212

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