# Intake Air Fitting



## Ed Williams (Jun 13, 2019)

Kind of a stupid question. After looking at many tractors in this forum and others, it appears that the air intake on my 1970 Ford 4000 is unusually tall. I notice while operating the tractor that in moves quite a bit. Is there a reason for it to be so tall. Can I shorten the intake back to a more reasonable height without causing any problems?


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

Looks a bit like an after market precleaner, Ed. Maybe the cleaner and the pipe that attaches to it mounts directly to the tractor as a unit (removing the lower pipe), or take the extension pipe out and mount the cleaner to the pipe that just clears the hood. 
Seems the original style were similar to this unit.


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## Bob Driver (Nov 1, 2017)

"Can I shorten the intake back to a more reasonable height without causing any problems?"

You have to think what the design engineers were trying to accomplish and you can almost bet it wasn't to add cost, or complicate the production process. You also have to assume they "field tested" the prototype before it went into full production in a variety of working environments and weather conditions to come up with a final design

Logic tells you they were after clean, dry, cool air going into the air intake/filtration system under a multitude of operating and weather conditions. Bear that in mind with any modifications you might consider. Weigh the possible risk of adding more dust, water, or increasing the temperature of the air going into engine over what the engineers originally designed and tested. Do they know something you don't as the result of their testing?

As to the wisdom of engineers..... In 1970, them engineer boys knew how to use a *slide rule*. I started out thinking that alone put them on a whole different intellecutal plane than me. 50 years later, it's usually "You gotta be kidding me, what idiot came up with this?" After all, somebody actually got paid to design the YUGO


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## Ultradog (Feb 27, 2005)

That is an aftermarket filter and extension. Probably put on by someone who did a lot of dusty field work and wanted to raise the air intake higher off the ground. I believe the filter was made by Donaldson.
What you have is not uncommon but I'd guess that 90% of these tractors still run the OEM shorter height. You can shorten it back to normal and not hurt anything. It would be in the way for me.
Ford used two different mushroom caps. The early style whuch is round on top and later style which looked more squarish. The later style created a cyclone effect and dropped some of the larger particles out of the air flow before it went into the filter. Probably more effective than the round top ones.
Your Donaldson is probably better than the Ford one. It also uses the cyclone effect. I would reuse that part.
Here are a couple of photos that show the "normal" height.


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

I think lowering the one you have would be the better option, as Ultradog mentioned. That cleaner gives you a great visual as to when it needs to be emptied as well and more cost effective than buying more parts.


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## Ed Williams (Jun 13, 2019)

Thanks. It looks like there is just an extra pipe in the mounting. I was thinking of removing the extra pipe and mounting the head unit on the lower pipe. It looks to be the correct height from the pics you sent. I wouldn't bother, but I have already bumped it twice while mowing around trees. I tend to watch the exhaust for clearance but not the intake. Don't want to tear up anything else.


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