72 Duster Resurrection

72 Duster Resurrection

Sorry for the delayed response, it turned into a full weekend.

Wow, thanks for the mountain of solid info and advice everyone! Looks like I definitely picked the right mopar forum to join!

slantsixdan said
No, that's the bowl vent. Carburetor operation and repair manuals and links to training movies and carb repair/modification threads are posted here for free download. Tune-up parts and technique suggestions are in this thread.

That is exactly what I needed, thats a goldmine of carb knowledge, thanks dan!

moparmat2000 said
A jiffy kit for these carbs is super cheap. Looks like a holley model 1920. I can rebuild those in my sleep. Slants will run on shitty gas. A friend of mine ran his one time on varsol and laquer thinner for a week, though i wouldent ever recommend that. I would recommend using a bit of loctite on the carb to intake manifold studs and carb mounting nuts as i have had them work loose on a few slants i have had.

A quirky thing about these is the distributor drive gear. Its nylon plastic. After you get it up and running i'd recomnend pulling the distributor , taking it apart to clean out the spiral oiling grooves on the dist shaft. By now they are prob coked up. Cleaning them up and applying fresh oil will prevent the shaft from locking up and breaking the gear. Also i recommend dissassembling the distributor and clean and lubricate the advance weights. they use bronse bushings on them. Also remove and clean the timer shaft that the rotor fits on. Theres a felt pad in the hollow upper part of the shaft under which is a snap ring to remove it. Every time you do a tune up your supposed to put a few drops of motor oil on the felt pad under the rotor so that shaft stays lubricated. Its prob all sticky by now the grease being close to 50 years old. Then get a new nylon drive gear from dorman (help section) it comes with a new roll pin and thrust washer for about $10.

Mopar made the distributor gear on slantys out of nylon so if it broke it wouldent wipe out the cam. Theres plenty of slants with plastic distributor gear pieces in the oil pans that are happily running around out there so its not a big deal.

Other than a few quirky things, an engine is an engine. Check to make sure the vac advance is working, and make sure none of the vac lines are cracked. Mopars slant 6 or 30° inline. Isnt much different than any other inline six. The reason for the angle was they wanted it to be able to clear lower hoodlines that were being penned in the styling studios that a regular straight six wouldent be able to do.

Congrats on the duster. Hope our wealth of knowledge helps you out. We're glad you found us. This is the best place for mopar A bodies in cyberspace. I'm sure there will be a build thread on this in the future. Will there eventually be a V8 in it? Or are you planning on staying with the /6

Thanks for all the info, I had to read your post about 5 times to soak it in. It is indeed a 1920 carb according to the stamping on the side. I would like to get the /6 running and do some cruising until I accept the fact that its gonna need a V8. I actually bought a rebuilt 318 thats in the garage......

Steve 225 said
New member also
Recently got my duster slant 6 running after 5 years in the garage
Ran when I parked it, went to start it and no spark, had resigned myself to chasing down the problem but before I started replacing things I disconnected then reconnected every electrical connection under the hood and like a miracle I had spark
So if you don't have spark when you try to fire it up before you go replacing parts try all the connections it worked for me
BTW good luck with the duster

Good to know, thanks. I am having some electrical gremlins, see farther down in my post.

BillGrissom said
The accelerator pump is a plastic piston which is at the bottom, connected to the throttle mechanism. The diaphrams tend to tear and leak gas out the slot, but new ones are in the rebuild kit. The 3 screws in front of your circle are the top of the "economizer" which is similar to the "power valve" in 4 bbl Holleys. It richens the mixture at higher flows (lower venturi pressure pulls the diaphragm opening 2 fuel ports). Also in the kit. The Holley 1920 can drive people nuts if the sealed metering valve is clogged, so you get a lean idle. For startup, run a hose to a jug of clean gas. You can also spray starter fluid down the throat just to test (don't run long).

Don't run more than 30 sec without coolant. You can run a garden hose when testing, which will also help flush the block. Once driving regularly, run w/ water and 1 lb citric acid (ebay) for a day to get a good flush.

Looks like you have front disk brakes (MC has a large F reservoir). That would be the valuable Kelsey-Hayes disks in 1972, also used in Mustangs. A used setup runs $200 on ebay, so consider you paid only $300 for the car. Rockauto has rebuilt calipers. Your wheels are somewhat unique "small bolt pattern" 5 x 4" bolt circle. Don't fret, since many sell their alloy wheels cheap when changing to later size, or you can buy new 17" alloys in SBP.

Many parts have options. For the electronic ignition, consider GM 8-pin HEI conversion (TrailBeast here sells kits). For AC compressor, consider a smaller Sanden. For starter, look at later Magnum-engine mini-starter. You can change to a 2 bbl or 4 bbl intake manifold, or even retrofit MPFI like pishta did. Take it slow and read up before jumping into anything major. Like most, yours is rusted below the brake MC (leaking glycol, plus exhaust heat). De-rust and paint that when you have parts off. Overall, your engine bay looks really sound. I hope the hood rust is just on the surface since rust-thrus are a whole bigger issue (need weld repair). You usually have that around the rear wheel wells and door front corners.

How in the world do you guys know so much from seeing those few picture, this is awesome, thanks! I think you are right on with the improvements (brake, radiator, AC comp, etc) I need to do. Thankfully the body is in great shape, the hood rust is very light looking. Im going to take a stab at the body and paint work myself. Also, I might have a frankenstein car then, because they look like drums on the front:

Ok gang, here is the update:

I had some beers and then tried to jump the duster. I sprayed some PB blaster in the spark plug holes, removed the old battery, put jumper cables directly on the battery connections, turned the key and......nothing.

No lights in cab, no noise or movement from the starter at all.

So looking at other cars, I realized that the duster is missing these things so I bought and installed new ones from autozone:

-voltage regulator (it was unplugged and stuck to the side of the old battery. The black silicone stuff had....run...out?)

-Ballast Resistor (noticed those 2 wires going no where)

Then we tried it again. The running lights on the back came on (they may have come on the first time and I didnt notice) and my blinkers worked..mostly. Still no other lights in the instruments and not a peep from the starter.

So naturally we progressed to jumping across the starter terminals manually with a screwdriver and it started turning! Exciting! Less exciting was the slow speed and awful grinding noise that came out. It did not look near fast enough to start anything either.

So I checked the following based on internet research:

Multimeter showed 12V getting through this fusable link, a common problem according to the internet.

Fuse panel was missing 2 fuses so I replaced them, not sure what I am supposed to be seeing here, I have not multi metered these yet.

Also here are some non engine critical pics about stuff I need an expert look at:

Do these look alright? They were the dirtiest ones, had some oil on them..

Bonus interior pic!

So whats next, gurus? What do I check to get my starter to turn over with the key ignition?