1940s Chrysler New Yorker oil bath air cleaners

[MarcDeSoto]

Does anyone know what the big cylinder is that is attached to the oil bath air cleaner on straight eight Chryslers from the 40s is?  

[Sam Buchanan]

Silencer?

[Dodgeb4ya]

It is a silencer.

[Dan Hiebert]

Yes, silencer, but the silencer is what should be attached to the carb, not the oil bath part.  At least that's how it looks to be attached in MarcDeSoto's photo.   

[MarcDeSoto]

The first pic above in my post is from a 42 Chrysler sedan.  The second pic is from the post war era.  I thought it might be a silencer, but then why doesn't the Windsor and Royal models have one too?  Maybe Chrysler just wanted the 8 cyllinder to sound quieter showing more elegance that the Windsor 6.  

 

[Dodgeb4ya]

The early Chrysler eights from 1946 to 1947 used a Stromberg AAVS series 2BBL carburetor. A much quieter carb setup using two slightly smaller throttle plates feeding directly into the two bore intake manifold.

Thus not needing as big of a silencer type air cleaner.

The single barrel 1947 to 1948 Carter B&B carb eights can make a huge amount of hissing noise without the air cleaner mounted. A two to one carb adapter is needed for the one barrel Carter to feed into the 2 barrel intake manifold.

Having only a 1-3/4" throttle plate with all that air going through it is noisy for sure and likely the reason for the larger more complicated air cleaner as shown above.

My 1946 New Yorker had the 2 BB Stromberg with the smaller silencer air cleaner in the first picture shown above Marc posted.

My 1948 T&C using the carter 1BBL has the bigger more complicated silencer air cleaner as I posted above.

I have worked on many of these eight cylinder Chrysler models and they need a good quiet air cleaner. The owners wouldn't want to listen to a hissing noisy engine under the hood of a luxury car.

I sure don't either!!

 Sorry on the sideways pics.

[MarcDeSoto]

Thanks Dodge, that's the best explanation I've seen.  I learned something I didn't know about the straight eight engines and carburetors of the 40s.