New Guy With An Old Duster

-
Tanker

Tanker

My first Chrysler
Joined
Oct 17, 2019
Messages
1,821
Reaction score
5,164
Location
Pittsburgh
Hello everyone. I found this forum this morning while searching for information on my 1975 Duster and thought I'd go ahead and join. I bought the car in 1981 from an Army friend at Ft Hood Tx and drove it for ten years before the engine died. I'm the cars third owner. It originally came from Missouri and already had some corrosion issues when I got it. Lucerne Poly Blue with a white interior and a white vinyl top covering the forward two thirds of the roof, it looked a bit like a smurf(which I didn't care for). So when a friend cautioned me about corrosion forming under vinyl tops of cars that live outside full time that was all the reason I needed to remove it, and sure enough corrosion had been forming in several places under the vinyl, so good call there.

The engine is a 318 mated to a three speed manual transmission with a floor mounted shifter, which made the car a lot of fun to drive, and once I added front and rear anti sway bars (it had none) it was even better. Unfortunately the engine died in the early nineties when the timing chain jumped a few teeth and the pistons came up and wacked all the valves and bent all the push rods. So much for timing gears with nylon teeth. Being sentimentally attached to the car by then (I'm like that) I didn't want to just get rid of it and I couldn't afford the repairs, so it was pushed to the end of my parents driveway in Los Angels where it sat for the next few decades.

Finally in August while my wife and I were in L.A. I cleaned the car up as best I could and got it ready for the trip to PA. The Winston Winner tires (Remember them?) that were nearly new when it died were now ruined and wouldn't hold air, so new tires and a new master cylinder later the car was ready to go. It arrived here in Pittsburgh about two weeks ago, and now the fun begins.

Duster 1.jpg


Duster 2.jpg
 
that is a sweet looking car
what are the plans...engine overhaul and fresh tires?


those 318s, can be made to run quite well, especially with a manual transmission
 
It needs some sheet metal work to remove rust in a few places, but no other body work. And of course it'll need a proper paint job and a new interior. I'm not going for factory original. I worked hard to track down all those black door panels and plastic trim pieces and I'm not giving them up. Fortunately it looks like everything I need for the interior is available new. An odd thing I noticed about the interior when I got the car back in 81 was that the white plastic trim pieces were all very brittle. The plastic A pillar covers were so dry rotted that if I ran my fingernail across them the surface would crumble into powder and rain down on the floor, and the car was only six years old at the time. Meanwhile, forty years later the black trim pieces I installed are still soft and pliable.
 
Welcome to the site, good looking car and an even better story!
Love the 318 3 speed floor shift cars.
Have fun with it, that's what it's all about.........
 
Duster 6 engine bay.jpg
Thanks for the welcome everyone. It's nice to be here among fellow Mopar loving gearheads. I've got a few more photos for you and a couple of questions too. This first one(obviously) is the engine. I know the photo makes it look as though the car spent the last year submerged in a swamp and I can't explain that. It looks better in person.
 
I found something odd when I was getting the car ready to ship to PA. There are several components mounted around the engine bay that were potted at the factory. Over the last thirty years that potting material(some sort of epoxy I'd guess) seems to have become bored where it was sitting and decided to make a very slow run for it. It didn't get very far, but it did manage to make quite a mess in the process. The electronic ignition module was responsible for this mess here. By the way, can anyone identify the item mounted in the foreground of this photo? The one with the red plug? Whatever it is I want a new one.

Duster 5.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here's the same area after spending the better part of an hour slowly chipping and scraping away at the epoxy. Acetone cleaned up the last bit of residue. Of course the electronic ignition module is shot.

Duster 7.jpg
 
Last edited:
Finally, can anyone identify the components shown in these last two photos? They'll need replacing and it'll be a couple of weeks before my service manuals arrive. It's not an emergency since the car isn't going anywhere for a while. Just wondered if someone could clue me in sooner.

Duster 4.jpg


Duster 3.jpg
 
Looks like maybe a voltage regulator or some kind of regulator also for the AC? I don't know. If the wires are attached or end up at the back of the alternator you know it's the regulator..
Anyways why haven't you tossed a $25 timing chain and gears on and a cheap set of push rods and fire that baby up!?.
 
Welcome to the site, Tanker.
The '75 models had all sorts of worthless emission stuff on it that you will not need. The floor pan has a hump to clear the catalytic converter too. These cars are still essentially similar to the 70/71 models and many parts can be swapped around.
Good luck.
 
Welcome, tanker. Nice ride. I envy you. You can go to Primanti Brothers any time you want.
 
Looks like maybe a voltage regulator or some kind of regulator also for the AC?
Click to expand...

That's a logical guess for voltage regulator, but I've already purchased the replacement for that and it wasn't either of those parts. As for AC related, the car has no AC. For that matter it has no power brakes or power steering. When you lift the hood on this one there's nothing in there but the engine, which is just the way I like it. Most of the pollution control stuff disappeared in 82 when I had a muffler shop install headers, and the few odds and ends that remain no longer serve any purpose, having essentially been along for the ride ever since.

Anyways why haven't you tossed a $25 timing chain and gears on and a cheap set of push rods and fire that baby up!?.
Click to expand...

I probably should've done that back when the engine first died, but at the time I feared damage to the valves and wanted to pull the heads to inspect them. Unfortunately four of the head bolts on the drivers side were blocked by the headers and the headers couldn't be pulled clear because of interference by the steering column. The muffler shop said they had to lift the engine to get the header in on that side. As a result of the trouble they've caused the headers will be coming off and won't be going back on, though I may look into a set of shorties. But truthfully I'm seriously considering hooking the dual exhausts up to stock cast iron manifolds. At this point after sitting partially disassembled for so long I really need to go through this engine to clear out any debris that may have found it's way inside. It's frustrating when I think of how easily this could have been dealt with thirty years ago, but I wasn't a mechanic then and didn't have a clear picture of what I was up against.:(
 
Tanker said:
That's a logical guess for voltage regulator, but I've already purchased the replacement for that and it wasn't either of those parts. As for AC related, the car has no AC. For that matter it has no power brakes or power steering. When you lift the hood on this one there's nothing in there but the engine, which is just the way I like it. Most of the pollution control stuff disappeared in 82 when I had a muffler shop install headers, and the few odds and ends that remain no longer serve any purpose, having essentially been along for the ride ever since.



I probably should've done that back when the engine first died, but at the time I feared damage to the valves and wanted to pull the heads to inspect them. Unfortunately four of the head bolts on the drivers side were blocked by the headers and the headers couldn't be pulled clear because of interference by the steering column. The muffler shop said they had to lift the engine to get the header in on that side. As a result of the trouble they've caused the headers will be coming off and won't be going back on, though I may look into a set of shorties. But truthfully I'm seriously considering hooking the dual exhausts up to stock cast iron manifolds. At this point after sitting partially disassembled for so long I really need to go through this engine to clear out any debris that may have found it's way inside. It's frustrating when I think of how easily this could have been dealt with thirty years ago, but I wasn't a mechanic then and didn't have a clear picture of what I was up against.:(
Click to expand...
I would definitely pull the engine and reseal it, clean it, find out if there's any major problems..
During that time you can clean up that rats nest of wires.
Also a great time to invest another hundred and fifty dollars into a new set of cheap headers and just set them in there first and put the motor in on top of them...
 
Just as a side note, the first vehicle I was ever licensed to drive at seventeen was an M60A1 tank like the one in my avatar, and it was made by Chrysler. So it's fair to say I've been driving Mopar's my entire adult life. My other vehicles are a Dodge Neon, a Dodge Intrepid, and a Ram 2500 with a Cummins. :)
 
Last edited:
Also header gaskets have came a long way since 1982 and there's no longer any leaking issues if you buy a quality gasket...
 
My Ram is a 98 quad cab as well, and thankfully has the older style Cummins that gets 21.5 mpg on the highway, though mine is a short bed. I love the look of the Dodge trucks of that generation. The new ones, not so much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top