Air filter question

[dtrojcak]

I have what appears to be a Omix air cleaner assembly installed on my new to me 1978 CJ7 .

Omix 17704.04 Air Cleaner Assembly | Auto Parts Warehouse

However, the little "tube" is missing which leaves just a hole that allows unfiltered air directly into the carburetor.
Two questions:
What is the tube supposed to connect to?
Can I simply plug/cover the hole with something to prevent sucking raw air into engine?

I will be changing that assembly out to something else in the near future though. Looking at the filter, it has a lot of holes in the paper filter. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that or if it's "dry-rotted" or something, but I don't see how it's doing much filtering.

 

[Dan77CJ7]

The hole is for a the valve cover breather. you should have two grommets on the valve cover one PVC and the other a breather run a hose from the air cleaner to the breather spot on the valve cover. you can also run a mini filter instead of the hose and plug the air filter hole. IMO this is a cleaner look,i have pics of my air filter and mini filter if you need ideas. good luck.