273 Commando Air Cleaners and Valve Covers

Jim Lusk said

The same air cleaner was used on some big blocks, but was painted black. There is no repop of the correct silk screened aluminum applique. There were also some with the nipple for the valve cover breather and some without. Every one I have owned had the nipple, but that's probably because I am in California.

The valve covers are close, but they also had a special wire holder by the carb on the passenger side cover. 65 and 66 used the same covers. 67 was the first year of the grommet for the PCV valve.

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I have to agree with Jim on most of what he said. Yes, the same air cleaner,albeit, black instead of chrome came on some early big blocks. I had a '66 Charger 383 that had a black one. The slant 6 air cleaner used the same top cover, but the lower plate had the smaller opening for a one barrell carb. The nipple was used on C.A.P. cars.
The 2 bbl valve covers had the spark plug wire holders "welded" to the valve cover itself and the Commando ones had them on the fins. If you were careful, you could remove the holders on the 2bbl ones,paint them wrinkle black and glue the aluminum fins on. Regarding the different years of Commando covers, they do differ from year to year.....

1965 - "stove pipes" on top for PCV and breather;3 small wiring holders on
the pass.side cover; plug wires used individual plastic grommets for
retention in the fins
1966 - stove pipes on top for PCV and breather;2 small and 1 large wire
holder on pass side cover;individual grommets for wires
1967 - 1 stove pipe for breather and rubber grommet for PCV;2 small and
and 1 large wire holders on pass side;fins had slots between holes for
using plastic double wire holders.

Hope this helps...