Baldwin Air Filter Cross Reference Guide
Baldwin air filters use PA for panel and primary elements and RS for radial seal elements, and the company publishes its own cross reference catalogues rather than leaving you to an aggregator. Its Number-Finder takes a competitor or OE number and returns the Baldwin equivalent, with a plain description of what the part is.
Most filter brands make you decode a part number. Baldwin prints what the part is next to every number it publishes, which makes its catalogues the easiest in the industry to cross reference from.
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Baldwin Numbers Come With Their Own Description
Look at how entries are published and the prefix stops being a puzzle. These are real lines from Baldwin's 2025 catalogues:
- PA10454 Panel Air Element, against GMC 84848112 and ACDelco A3258C, for 2023 to 2025 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon
- RS10451 Radial Seal Air Element, against Ford MB3Z9601A and Motorcraft FA2022, for the Ford Bronco
- RS30348 Radial Seal Outer Air Element, against Kubota RD15842270, for Kubota excavators and loaders
- PA30267 Primary Air Element, against Cummins 4071693 and Fleetguard AF25904
PA covers panel and primary air elements, RS covers radial seal elements, and the words after the number tell you the rest. Note that the same PA prefix also appears on cabin elements, such as PA10442 for a 2020 to 2022 Nissan Sentra, so the description does more work than the letters.
The Number-Finder Runs the Direction You Need
Baldwin's Number-Finder Cross-Reference, Form 561-25, is built for the lookup people actually do: you arrive holding a competitor or OE number and want the Baldwin part.
The 2025 edition supersedes Form 561-23 and runs to about a thousand pages, with the cross reference body alone spanning pages 34 to 997. Ahead of it sit a new products list, an obsolete products list and a decoder for abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes.
For a vehicle-first lookup, the companion is Form 123-25, Automotive Applications, which is organised by year with a model-to-make index and VIN decoding, and covers 1985 onward, pre-1985 and motorcycles in separate blocks.
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Baldwin Publishes Supersessions, Which Almost Nobody Does
This is the part worth knowing about. Both catalogues carry an obsolete products section that maps a discontinued Baldwin number to the current replacement, running to a dozen pages in Form 561 and thirteen in Form 123.
When a number on a dusty box returns nothing from a search, that section is the answer, and it is published by the manufacturer rather than guessed at by a chart site. The Super Tech cabin filter lookup shows what the opposite looks like: a retail number with no supersession list at all.
Outer and Inner Are Two Different Parts
On radial seal applications Baldwin lists Radial Seal Outer Air Element and Radial Seal Inner Air Element as separate numbers, with the outer one doing the filtering and the inner one sitting behind it.
A cross reference that returns an outer element has not told you whether the machine also takes an inner one. Check the application listing for both before ordering, because the pair is not implied by either number.
Some entries carry extra notes that matter at fitting time, including furnished gasket, integral gasket, dust ejector hole, inside-out flow direction and flame retardant media.
What Baldwin Still Does Not Publish
Per-part efficiency. The catalogue entries give dimensions, applications and construction notes, and no percentage.
Baldwin's agriculture literature does name an ISO 5011 test and prints a comparison chart against a competitor on scales of 95 to 100% efficiency and 4,000 to 5,000 grams of capacity, but the plotted values are not stated as numbers anywhere in the document. So the brand tests to the standard and shows the shape of the result without publishing the figure for the part in your hand.
That is still ahead of the passenger car aisle, where no efficiency data appears at all, as the engine air filter cross reference guide sets out.
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How to Cross Reference a Baldwin Air Filter
- Start with the number you have, competitor or OE, in Form 561.
- Read the description that comes back, not just the Baldwin number, and confirm it matches the element you are replacing.
- Check the obsolete list if the number returns nothing.
- Look for a matching inner element on radial seal applications.
- Confirm the dimensions against the old filter, since the seal and depth are what a chart cannot verify.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do PA and RS mean on a Baldwin air filter? PA marks panel and primary air elements, RS marks radial seal elements. Baldwin prints a description beside every number in its catalogues, such as Panel Air Element or Radial Seal Outer Air Element, so the description rather than the prefix is the reliable guide. PA also appears on cabin elements.
How do I look up a Baldwin air filter by a competitor number? Use Baldwin's Number-Finder Cross-Reference, Form 561-25. It is organised to take a competitor or OE number and return the Baldwin part, with the cross reference body running from page 34 to page 997 in the 2025 edition.
My Baldwin number is discontinued. What replaces it? Check the obsolete products section at the front of Form 561 or Form 123. Baldwin publishes a mapping from each discontinued number to its current replacement, which is unusual: most filter brands publish no supersession list at all.
Does Baldwin publish air filter efficiency figures? Not per part. Its agriculture literature names an ISO 5011 test and shows a comparison chart against a competitor, without stating the plotted values. Catalogue entries give dimensions, applications and construction notes rather than a percentage.
What to Do Next
Write down the number on the old filter and whether the housing holds one element or two before you open the catalogue. Form 561 will give you the Baldwin equivalent in one step, and the inner element is the thing most people discover they needed after the box arrives.
