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Hello all. Long story short, replacing a WGB oil clarifier my great grandfather installed on his 1940 120 8cyl, with factpry style oil filter assembly. Wanting to confirm where the supply and return lines go into the engine.
Thank you as always.

On a 282 The filter supply line is connected to the port toward the bottom of the block. On some engines there will also be an oil pressure sender at the same port. The filter return connects to the upper port and provides the only supply to the valve lifter gallery by using oil returning to the engine. If the filter is removed there MUST be a small pigtail installed to connect the two ports directly or the lifter gallery will not get any oil.

Here are two different engines showing the ports. The filter styles differ but the block ports are almost the same.

Note that the photo with the canister mounted above the generator is the typical filter used 40-42 and has the inlet on the bottom. Postwar filters look much the same but have the inlet on the side and outlet on the bottom. There is usually a stamping near the canister ports to identify them.

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I have attached a few pics of my setup. My return goes into a fitting on the back of the filler tube. There is a tee at the bottom supply line with a feed to the filter and a small line to the port on the block just above. I feel like I should leave the small line and tee in place and plumb everything from there. But if the pressure is coming from the bottom port, should that not be the top/supply at the filter and not the bottom. Seems like the oil should flow from outside in on the cartridge, but a may be wrong.

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You can use the existing ports and leave the pigtail in place. That would duplicate the final plumbing arrangement Packard settled upon after intermittent issues with the filter and plumbing in early 356 engines with hydraulic lifters was found after a short time in production. That layout where return oil dumps directly into the crankcase was eventually on all engines made thru 56. Your port added in the fill tube is just an early implementation.

The engines with solid lifters like the 282 and later 288 do not require as much oil to the lifter gallery so lifter supply going thru the filter was OK. They left the return going to the upper port until somewhere in 23rd series production when hydraulic lifters became more the norm.

There may be a restriction somewhere in one of the fittings supplying your existing setup. It is unclear if that is needed with solid lifters as the demand is considerably lower so gallery will only be able to take a minimal amount of oil. No idea how much difference in flow there will be with a filter vs your present setup but if it turns out to be too much flow thru the filter and oil pressure gauge seems low compared to before, Packard added an orifice to one of the fittings to limit flow thru the filter to somewhere around 10-12% of what is available at the bottom port.

Prewar Packards had an orifice in the elbow fitting at the bottom filter inlet. That was later moved to a 4 way brass block fitting at the bottom port. Postwar the orifice was built into the center tube in the filter canisters. If you need to add something Packard advised adding solder to the fitting opening and then drilling a 5/64" hole thru the solder to act as the restriction.

Thank you. Those pics were a great help.

If you want to read a bit on the final version of early 356 plumbing changes and the implementation of filter return oil going directly to the crankcase check out the Aug 15, 43 Service Letter article on hydraulic valve tappets.

That plumbing layout was cleaned up and by the 24th series added to all engines with or without hydraulic lifters. The addition of a proper port located in the block casting to directly return oil to the crankcase was the final change.

Howard. That was all a great help. Now that it's up and running I think there is to much oil going thru the filter. The filler pipe is spewing out oil thru the cap/vent once it's warmed up. Think I need to replump like your first picture or put a restriction somewhere. Any thoughts?

Howard,

I have a 39 120 with the 282 engine. I have the old sytle filter canister below the generator. How does that get cleaned? or does it? I think I would like to take that style out and mount a replaceable element style cansiter above the generator so that I can replace the filter when I do oil changes. Any advice where I can get the canister and lines? I know I can call Max Merritt but looking for more afforable options. Thanks John