cruiser
Well-Known Member
Good evening fellow A body enthusiasts. I hope that you've enjoyed parts one through seven of your bedtime reading. Hopefully, tonights installment will put you soundly to sleep with visions of a lovely sunset drive in your Plymouth or Dodge, with your best girl snuggled up next to you. The air cleaners on our Mopar rides are among the most beat up and unsightly items under our hoods (see first photo). Often, they're not the original that came with the car, and if they are they look terrible. My 230,000 mile 1974 Duster still had its original unit in place when I bought the car in 2019, but it looked awful. In 1974, Chrysler changed the rectangular intake snorkel to an oval intake, but the rest of the unit was left unchanged. So I knew that I had the correct one on my car. I started by disassembling everything and then bead blasting the housing and lid. The original factory finish was a poorly applied single coat of semi gloss black paint, full of runs and thin spots. Next, I carefully applied three coats of Krylon Fusion # 2732 Satin Black spray paint. The Fusion paint line eliminates the need to prime first, and I love the satiny finish which is very close to the original look. Once dry, I installed a new gasket in the channel in the underside of the lid using 1/4" wide weatherstrip foam from a hardware store. This stuff is nearly identical to the original gasket foam and seals perfectly. I then lubricated the bypass door hinge, then checked for the correct operation of the bypass door vacuum diaphram by hooking it up to a hand operated vacuum pump. Everything checked out well. I then reinstalled the temperature sensor to the floor of the air cleaner with a new foam gasket. The old sensor had been installed backwards. Next came the replacement of all of the 3/16" rubber vacuum lines attached to the cleaner that supply vacuum to the bypass door and OSAC valve. When this was finished I installed the air cleaner to the Holley 1945 one barrel carb atop the mighty slant six. The heated air supply duct that feeds into the bottom of the bypass door was made of a cheap cardboard material and was in rough shape. NAPA sells an aluminum replacement duct of the correct diameter, which I spray painted flat black and installed beneath the cleaner housing. It looks great and is nearly identical to the original duct when painted. I previously purchased two NOS MOPAR air filters in their original boxes, part number 2206376, so one of these NOS filters went into the refurbished unit. Finally, I had to do something about the air cleaner servicing decal. These decals are always shriveled up and located to the rear of the housing where you cannot read them. I was able to purchase a repro sticker, although the repop stickers have the incorrect part number on them. No one is currently making a sticker correct for the slant six motor, so I had to go with the best available one. In any case, I installed it on the flat recessed surface on the front of the housing where it can be read. I've been told that this recess was stamped into the front of the housing to provide clearance for the air conditioning compressor. I'm not sure if this is correct, but it's a great spot for the sticker. Now my lovely reconditioned air cleaner sits in my engine compartment, making the rest of the motor look bad by comparison (see second photo). The heated bypass door system works perfectly now, and provides heated warmup air to the engine on a cold day. So that's it for tonight's installment. I hope you enjoyed it and are ready for bed now. Good night!
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