Air cleaner with air pump dust remover

Claim 1

A combination air cleaning and purging apparatus for an internal combustion engine comprising: a dry element type air filter device adapted for use with said engine and having a main casing provided with an air inlet communicating with the atmosphere and a filtered air outlet adapted for coupling with said engine, means disposed within said casing for separating and filtering foreign matter from the air passing through said device, and a collector cap portion on said casing and having a matter-collecting zone therein in communication with said separating means for receiving and collecting said foreign matter removed from the air by said means; means providing an outlet on said collector cap in communication with the matter-collecting zone; selectively actuatable air moving means adapted to pneumatically convey said foreign matter and having an inlet and an outlet; conduit means coupling the outlet on said collector cap portion with the inlet of said air moving means; and selectively actuatable drive means operably interconnecting said air moving means with said engine for powering the air moving means at selected times to periodically draw the foreign matter from said collector cap via said conduit means for purging said device of said foreign matter and discharging the same to the atmosphere without removal of said cap or manual handling of said matter, there being provided structure defining a vortex generator interiorly of said cap portion whereby an air turbulence is created therein when said air moving means is actuated by said drive means, said vortex generator being comprised of a plurality of generally upright vanes disposed on the normally lower wall of said cap portion for generating said vortex.