My new 1975 Plymouth Duster Custom

-
TylerW

TylerW

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2008
Messages
1,064
Reaction score
169
Location
Elkton, TN
Hey guys:

I thought I would start a thread about the Duster I recently bought.

It's a '75 Duster Custom. Y9 Dark Gold, 318, 8-1/4, disc brakes, PS, PB, AC. It's a good 20-footer, but it needs work everywhere..a little in a lot of places, and a LOT in a few places.

It's not rusty all over, but it's got rust in the quarters, and some in the trunk floor. It's got the remains of a snakeskin top, and unfortunately it has an aftermarket sunroof.

I saw this on Craigslist about 100 miles away, so me and my brother drove down to check it out. I made the deal, and we took off home with it. Long story short is we made it back fine, but the carb won't idle and has very worn shaft bushings.

I'm happy about this car because it's something I can do without having to be "correct" and I can enjoy it all I want along the way.

Did I say it needs work? LOL...this is the condensed plan:

1. Overhaul the carb.
2. Get an alignment
3. Replace all 4 tires
4. Replace the exhaust(glasspacks cut off before the axle with no straps..YUCK)
5. Find a better instrument panel and get the dash lights working.
6. clean up the wiring....ok I'll stop there:-D

I did get the complete broadcast sheet and owners and service manuals.

Onto the pictures!

S3010001.JPG


S3010002.JPG


S3010003.JPG


S3010004.JPG


S3010006.JPG


S3010008.JPG
 
Well I got some work done on the Duster today while taking breaks from doing a timing belt job on my Elantra.

I pulled the BBD and tore it down to rebuild it. According to the paperwork, it had a kit put in it 1.5 years and 300 miles ago but it won't hold an idle.

I didn't see the plugged idle tubes i was expecting, which bothers me some. However I did find that the butterflies had been removed and apparently bent and beat back into shape with a hammer. I have a spare carb with a good baseplate so it's no big deal.

Then I dug into improving the engine bay. Two things became apparent right away- first is that there was a small fire some time in the past, and also, I'll have to replace the engine harness. It's not horrible, but there's melted wiring around the choke and the A/C harness is nearly ruined.

I retaped the rest of it, and hopefully it'll last until I can track down a good engine harness.

The RH valvecover is pouring oil, I have gaskets for it.

The oil light isn't working because there's no sender, just a tube with some kind of cap on it.

While I was looking underneath at the oil filter adapter, I happened to notice that the idler arm is hard against the bottom of the RH exhaust pipe. I don't know what to make of this just yet.

My brother drove it the 100 miles home and he said it's very darty, meaning the alignment's off. The steering wheel is also off center, and there's a note on a receipt that says "could not center steering wheel, may have wrong LH tie rod". I don't see any accident damage.

Well, more to do tomorrow....
 
I have a partial under the hood engine wiring harness from a 74 Dart Sport that is kind of cut up but appears to mostly be there with good bulkhead connector blocks. if you want it just pay shipping and it's yours. You may be able to repair the harness you have with this one or use this one for your car. It came off a 75 dart sport with A/C. I cannot use it on my Duster and got a different harness. All wiring thats left on this harness appears clean and in good shape.
 
TylerW said:
...

While I was looking underneath at the oil filter adapter, I happened to notice that the idler arm is hard against the bottom of the RH exhaust pipe. I don't know what to make of this just yet.

My brother drove it the 100 miles home and he said it's very darty, meaning the alignment's off. The steering wheel is also off center, and there's a note on a receipt that says "could not center steering wheel, may have wrong LH tie rod". I don't see any accident damage.

Well, more to do tomorrow....
Click to expand...

I bet it's got some of worn suspension pieces. It's pretty hard to put the wrong tie rods on it. Either the tie rods were so far out of adjustment or there is some other wrong or bent part on it.

The wrong pitman or idler would be my first guess for wrong parts. There's other body styles that look close, but have the wrong geometry.

Power wash and scrub the underside of the front around the K-member and suspension to get a better look at what you are dealing with.
 

Well, it's way overdue for an update.

I've been working along on the Duster since my last installment. I cleaned and detailed the engine compartment and overhauled the carb.

The carb was what has delayed me so much. I rebuilt it and the idle tubes immediately picked up dirt again. So, after going through it again with no luck, I decided to go through it once again and do everything possible to make it work.

I took everything apart again and dumped it in the can of what passes as carburetor/parts cleaner these days(the fact that the basket is now plastic should tell you how weak it is) and let it sit in the hot sun for 3 days.

In the meantime I procured a .040 drill bit and opened the idle tubes up so that they would not block near as readily. I think the recommendation was around 0.032, but I had spare tubes if this didn't work.

FINALLY...it starts up and idles fine..finally. It does not run too rich with the idle tubes drilled out and in fact I think it could stand to go slightly larger.

There was a lot of work to be done elsewhere in the engine compartment. I gave the engine a degreasing, then removed everything that was incorrect, such as the radiator cap, crankcase filter, chrome coil and air cleaner. I then painted, detailed and installed all the correct pieces so that it looks much closer to original than before.

I swapped on some good black plug wires that I saved from another project, and also exercised some creativity with the vacuum lines going from the carb to the osac valve on the air cleaner:

I painted on a red stripe to some new vacuum line for one part of it, then on the other half leading to the distributor, I painted on horizontal red stripes. Not exactly factory correct, but it's neat.

I also repaired the burned engine harness by soldering new pieces in, since I figured I would be waiting a while if I just tried to find another harness.

In addition I repaired a hole in the overflow bottle and removed the oil filter relocation kit.

I still have to do some more painting underhood and detailing of the inner fenders, but it's much better than it was. Have a look:

S3010018.jpg


S3010019.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-
Back
Top Bottom