1955 Thunderbird Oil Bath Air Filter Swap

A popular desire of Tbird owners is to swap out the old Oil Bath air filter to a dry style air filter that can be easily replaced from an auto parts store at proper maintenance cycles. I researched many online forums and checked stock at many major vendors to find that what worked for everyone else would not work for me. After a few $50 purchases and returns I discovered that many recommended dry filters simply did not fit the stock Tbird housing (the height being the main issue). Another Technical sheet I stumbled on proved to be a great guide; however, the required aftermarket breather cover is no longer available from many major vendors and one vendor advised it was out of production.

Here is what worked for me with a Wix Air filter (Part #42297) and a Shopvac brand filter nut. Total cost for conversion was around $100.

00:00 Introduction
00:33 Oil Bath Air filter
01:35 Phil Brown Tech Sheet
02:05 Removing the oil bath filter from the chrome cover
06:45 Shim chrome cover to dry filter for carb clearance
08:56 Dry Air Filter - Wix #42297
09:35 Calculating Shim Height for Trimming
11:30 Improving the look - Grill Mesh
13:15 What the end product looks like

Technical notes:
*Air filter Wix #42297
*Shopvac filter nut has a 5.75" non-flanged O.D. - For my application the overall height of the cut down shopvac filter nut was 1 1/8"
*Shpvac filter nut can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-90304...