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Has anyone ever hear of anyone fabricating a 4bbl batwing air cleaner. I know for the purists it would no be acceptable
but at $1500 for a garbage piece and $5000 or more for a decent item it would seem that one could be fabricated for much less.

Granted they aren't easy to find but I saw a pretty decent one at Hershey last year for $1200. For $4500 there was the full setup, intake manifold, both carbs rebuilt by Daytona, air filter, linkage and fuel lines and fuel filter.

Al,

Any particular reason you want a Bat-Wing style air cleaner? There are many choices of conventional 2x4 air cleaners out there, particularly if this is for your "Hot Rod".

Craig

They did make repops. They were fiberglass and black. They were made by a Chevy outfit the specialized in tri 5s. They stopped making them though. But I believe they were 1500 to buy.

Mine was in excellent shape and I paid 1200 shipped. I found it by a google search on a caddy forum. It was posted for sale in 2011 and I got lucky and the guy still had it. Now on eBay I've see ones like mine going for well over 2500 or more. Crap ones missing parts and rusted....800-1200.

Those prices are pretty much what I have found.

Craig:
I just think that the batwing is cool looking. I I found one that had to be painted I could go whole hog and put my
'CLIPPER ROD' name to match my valve covers. I may have to settle for the chrome ones but I want to exhaust all possibilities first. Is there any place that gives the physical dimensions for one. I think that stove pipe might work for the stacks that fit over the carbs, then just wire weld diamond plate on them from there.

It is funny (peculiar) that on ebay there are a lot of listings for Batwing air cleaners but they are for the original air cleaners that most of us have on our cars.

ALK

Al Quote:

Yup, the dual inlet 1x4BBL air cleaner is miscalled a "bat wing" as was discussed on here recently. One can buy a replica of it from several places.

Paul in Las Vegas did this with his 2x4BBL setup even though he owns TWO REAL "Bat Wing" air cleaners (one 1955 and one 1956).



For my part on my Panther (I have the 2X4BBL intake), I'm leaning towards a modern style air cleaner from Moon Equipment with a K&N air filter:



Craig

Al,
The blueprints for the air distribution chamber is available from the Studebaker National Museum, or the Proving Grounds.

I would like to find the air cleaner, pods that hang down.

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb ... pact&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

Interchange chart, and dimensions
pontiacsafari.com/L1EarlyV8Pontiacs/56DualQuad/BatwingAircleanerGuide.pdf

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The dual 4BBL "batwing" oil bath air cleaner for Chevy LOOKS the same, but the distance on the carbs is different. It will not fit. Once saw a Packard Caribbean unit butchered by a Chevy guy for sale at a SoCal swap meet in the 1970s. Guy couldn't figure out why it didn't fit his Chevy engine and was selling it claiming it had been "manufactured incorrectly by GM"...ahhh. Price was nice because of the seller not knowing what he had!

For a short time there was a MoPar version, but this had heavy ribs pressed into the top of the main section and would require some huge modifications to make it look and work right. It was painted gold.

The Cadillac Eldorado batwing will fit on the Packard engine and carbs, but for a Packard must be turned backwards to the way it is used on the Cad. Also, the Cad has a cast chrome "V" symbol on top that would have to be removed and holes filled. Also, some of the Cadillac units attach their pots not using wing nuts, but rather with cast chrome dished knobs (these were actually old kitchen drawer pulls). It was also painted gold.

And for the hanging "pots" on the batwing... the Chevy and early Eldo pots are the same as Packard. But Cadillac later enlarged their pots and those are much bigger than Packard.

By the way... these pots are supposed to have oil in the bottom... to catch airborne debris. Thus the term, "oil bath"...

And almost never does anyone use proper decals on this air cleaner in the proper positions. At one point, there was a large special decal that actually made it out onto a couple of these air cleaners for 1955, but apparently was not kept and was not on early production cars. There was none on the Howard Hughes/Jean Peters 1955 Caribbean which was a very early serial number car.

I have indeed had batwings opened up and parts fabricated long years ago. But it is not an easy matter. There is tubing inside and of course, the main housings are die-pressed....AND have rolled flanges and stacks. A complicated assembly to duplicate accurately..

CRAIG:

Are you saying that the air cleaner that you pictured is readily available from Moon? Any idea on price??

ALK

Moon P/N MP715 $285 retail. It is supposed to be "adjustable" to fit virtually all applications, but until I or someone else bought one and tried it, who knows what that means. Also, I'm planing on using E-carbs, not 4GCs for which there is a difference in air horn ring diameter. Maybe there are adapters for that too.

Craig