Breather cap discussion

[OldMercs]

So I'm telling my grandson about crankcase ventilation in the 50's. Air through the breather cap, through the crankcase and out through the draft tube leaving an oily streak in the middle of the lane which I had to avoid when riding my motorcycle.

I took the breather cap from my car (292 c.i.) to show him how it filters the air going into the crankcase expecting to see something in the cap like coarse steel.wool.

My cap is empty; nothing in there. And I live on a dirt road, dusty dirt road in the summer.

I then pulled the cap of my parts car (256 c.i.) and it has a filter material like I was expecting in it. Then we started looking at the differences between the two caps. The one from the 256 is bigger and has an extension that fits in the oil fill tube. The 256 is on the top in the first picture and on the left in the other two.

Did breather caps change over the years? Is the filter element changeable or just buy a new cap? How did anyone get the filter element out of the cap I'm using?

This is possibly the most irrelevant question of the day but my 15 year old grandson needs answers.