My 71 Duster work in progress

[b-body-bob]

Yeah I need photos of my car for it to make sense, but those photos did help. I'll take some photos later to help with the following explanation.

One big difference I see in your photos is that the header is full width on the Duster and bolts to a tab welded to the fender. The one posted in the reference thread has the same thing. The one on your Valiant is a lot smaller and would be conveniently out of the way.

There are two pieces on either end of the grille that that are in your photo "Detail of RH headlamp area, upper", bolted to the fender with a stud/nut. There's no way I've found to slip those under the full width header without the the grille hitting the valence and even then they're not fully under the header.

Maybe they cut those top brackets off since they don't seem to be necessary if the grille is screwed to the header. But nobody mentioned that and it seems like it would be an important point to make.

At the bottom, there are tabs on the valence in position for those mounting brackets, but they are just tabs, no holes or anything. So there's nothing there to swap over, and its more likely I will need to drill holes in the valence to bolt the grille to, which is kinda sorta mentioned "mounted the bottom with a small bolt in each side to the lower valance."

I agree the orange/red car does look like the grille sticks out at the bottom. On the other car, one photo does show that it leans back at the bottom, or at least it seems to.


The headlight bucket attaches to the grille at the bottom so it seems like tilting the grille the wrong way would throw the whole thing out of alignment.

Dude with no hood latch doesn't need one.

But where did he find a header that hasn't been stamped out for a hood latch?

Full disclosure, I may use a 'glass hood with a 6-pack scoop. It's OK if you hate it though

There are two NOS grille emblems on eBay right now: one's in the US @ $175 and the one in Venezuela can be had for $140.

Classic Industries lists a repop for $70. I ain't paying that. I've already got too much $$ in this grille I may end up just hanging on the wall.

 

[Dr.Jass]

Yeah I need photos of my car for it to make sense, but those photos did help. I'll take some photos later to help with the following explanation.

One big difference I see in your photos is that the header is full width on the Duster and bolts to a tab welded to the fender. The one posted in the reference thread has the same thing. The one on your Valiant is a lot smaller and would be conveniently out of the way.

There are two pieces on either end of the grille that that are in your photo "Detail of RH headlamp area, upper", bolted to the fender with a stud/nut. There's no way I've found to slip those under the full width header without the the grille hitting the valence and even then they're not fully under the header.

Could the header be removed and the grille installed first, where that bracket would be pinched between the header and the fender?

On the primer car, the grille still looks sorta "off" to me at the center when compared to the RH headlamp bezel--that was the same photo I looked at to come to that conclusion. I did notice that he removed the two support brackets closest to the hood latch and used those rivet holes to screw the grille to the header. Without that support bracket, the grille is free to twist to wherever its comfortable rather than hold its correct shape even if it's screwed to the headlamp bezel. That's a long run of thin metal that twists easily. Also, with those brackets gone there's no way to screw it to two of the filler-panel tabs.

In my opinion, you've been led down the wrong road here. These guys modified the grille to fit the car, whereas I'd modify the car to fit the grille. The full-width header seems to serve no purpose other than supporting the plastic grille. Even if they're not drilled, it would seem that all the mounting points for the Valiant grille are there. My hood latch, holding the same hood to the same core support, is very solid in the small header. My wiring and turn signals appear to be far easier to service as well.

As such, I'd personally lop off all the excess metal on that header, beyond the area of the safety catch on the passenger's side. I'd then mirror that cut on the driver's. In the local-ish boneyard, there are zero 1969 Valiants, but several '70-'71 Plymouth A-bodies. A spare/sacrificial header is easy pickin' if a fella wanted to revert to the OE grille. The other option would be to simply trim the header around the points needed to facilitate the Valiant grille. 1969 Valiant grilles are much harder to find than Duster/Valiant/Scamp latch headers, and it's essentially guaranteed that anything removed from the grille will vanish into the ether, never to be reinstalled nor even seen again.

But where did he find a header that hasn't been stamped out for a hood latch?

He made it. It's pretty easy to weld some metal into those holes and grind it smooth. I would not have added the weight; I'd have hacked out as much of the header as possible still leaving support for the (OE) grille.

Full disclosure, I may use a 'glass hood with a 6-pack scoop. It's OK if you hate it though

Seriously, though--if you do go with a 'glass Six Pack hood, dibs on that existing hood scoop should you decide to sell it.

 

[b-body-bob]

I like the way you think.

If you look at the photos of your hood latch tray you'll see it bolts to the rad support where mine relies on the full width to support it.

My car even has bolt holes for that smaller latch tray, and it looks like something was bolted to it at one time.



So I can hack that one off and add some sort of L-bracket to bolt it to the rad support, or find an early model latch tray and use that instead. An early model piece is obviously the most straight-forward way to work though this dilemma.

ETA I see I just typed up basically what you had posted above I would say great minds think alike but nobody's every accused me of having one of those.

More photos of the problem areas for this install ...







I can't imagine someone would put a fiberglass hood on a car and close up the latch tray like that. That dude is just looking for work or something. I've got plenty as it is, no need to search for more crap to do.

 

[b-body-bob]

Found what I need (maybe) and all attached parts, but $95 is a bit more than I want to pay right now.

Original 1967 Plymouth Valiant Lower Hood Latch Support Assembly OEM Mopar | eBay

So is $90
https://www.ebay.com/itm/304039916286

This one says a 67 is one year only and now that I see it, it is shaped differently than mine but I'm not sure it's really different than the one on the Signet.
Mopar A Body 1967 Hood Latch Grille Support Bracket Valiant One Year Only | eBay

Last ones, this is a one-year only 67, the second one is a one-year only 68.

Mopar A Body 1967 Hood Latch Grille Support Bracket 67 Valiant One Year Only | eBay


Mopar A Body 1968 Hood Latch Grille Support Bracket 68 Valiant One Year Only | eBay


I see only one minor difference in those. There are no 69's to be found AFAICT.

That 68 tray looks pretty much exactly like the one in the Signet photo.

 

[Dr.Jass]

The parts catalog does show different numbers between 1968-69. My guess it it's related to the grille, too--1968 had the body-color filler panel between the grille halves. All three sure look close, though, other than the missing "angle divot" on the '67 part.

If you need further pictures to determine if there are glaring differences, I'll gladly take some. I'm out there anyway fighting with valvetrain again and the camera's right there on the fender.

 

[b-body-bob]

The parts catalog does show different numbers between 1968-69. My guess it it's related to the grille, too--1968 had the body-color filler panel between the grille halves. All three sure look close, though, other than the missing "angle divot" on the '67 part.

If you need further pictures to determine if there are glaring differences, I'll gladly take some. I'm out there anyway fighting with valvetrain again and the camera's right there on the fender.

It looks to me that the 68 and probably the 67 too would be workable for this situation.

I was just looking again to be sure that same difference in the front center is there in your photo, thinking it might have been there just for the "beak" on the 67/68, but it sure looks the same to me. All the bolt holes are there so it should just bolt right in and then the grille should bolt right to it. I think I'm going to Buy It Now (tm). Better to have it in hand for $10-20 more than I want to pay than to not have it at all.

I also looked at a 68 car and compared it, you can see that the beak on it bolts down in the front indention, and in the photo of the Signet, there is the very top of those holes peeking out at the edge of the grille. That tray's the same, part number or not.


There is a rectangle cut out of the factory fender about where one of those rearward facing struts bolts up so I'll need to figure that out or just fuggitabout it because it's bolted in everywhere else.

 

[Dr.Jass]

You mean this square hole, into which the factory spot-welded a rectangular threaded insert for the grille stud?




I'm familiar. I'm also missing one, and thus far my grille has stubbornly refused to fall out. I'd fix that on a better car, but I don't happen to have a better car around.

 

[b-body-bob]

Yeah that's probably it. It gives better access to the bottom of the hood pin too.

According to e-bay I'll have that 1968 part by Friday.

Speaking of hood pins, I drilled a hole in my new fender yesterday. I wouldn't have done it, but the hood already has holes in it.

 

[b-body-bob]

Now that I think that problem has been solved, I need to figure out my headlight bezel situation.

The ones with it have been painted black over the factory finish. They would look like a raccoon. Repro argent bezels are available, but at $250 for the set, I wonder if it's worth the effort to try to strip that and repaint them?

 

[Dr.Jass]

I bought some textured argent paint from Dupli-Color, but I haven't attempted to use it. They make a few different shades, one of which I think is relatively close to stock but may be more heavily textured. I actually considered using a darker shade of argent to give Agnes a little more aggressive look, and even went so far as to approximate my idea digitally. I like it, I just never got around to doing it.

You saw it here first; stock on the left and approximately what I'd do on the right:

 

[Dr.Jass]

The ones with it have been painted black over the factory finish. They would look like a raccoon. Repro argent bezels are available, but at $250 for the set, I wonder if it's worth the effort to try to strip that and repaint them?

Try Wal-Mart's Super Tech carb cleaner if it's still available. I stripped the entire engine bay of my LeBaron with just that and a putty knife. No, I'm not kidding. I was told just recently that 1st Ayd's #99 carb cleaner does a similar trick, but I've not tried it myself. The 1st Ayd stuff isn't technically legally labeled for retail sale though, so you may have to chase down a shop that uses their products to get it.

 

[b-body-bob]

I also found a place that has the driver's side NOS bezel for $50 but the passenger side is unavailable. I briefly considered that and one of the new repops, realized they'd never match in a million years, so dropped that idea.

I talked to Gina, who really doesn't care so long as it doesn't look dumb and she agreed it's buy the new repops or fight the originals. I considered that I am over $200 into the grille, and already bought new wheel centers for the thing, so I went ahead and bought the repops. I'm about done with paying for parts though. It's beyond stupid, in a way, but OTOH it's only money.

I worked some yesterday on a smallish hole that turned up under the dimmer switch at the pinch weld. The firewall rusted through, just above the weld but from the weld down is fine. I'm planning to lap weld a patch over the outside, and seal up the inside with some dum-dum or seam sealer (aka liquid nails). If welding the edge works for me, that will be all I need to do on the outside, otherwise I'll have to seal that up somehow. I would've been done with that yesterday but I just flat ran out of gas.

The car also has an "interesting" hole in the rear tail panel. It's about 1/4" square and you can hardly tell it's there. I first noticed when I was working on the trunk and caught the light in the trunk shining through it to the outside. I'm thinking I need to try fixing it with fiberglass or something similar, on the inside, with a skim of filler on the outside. It's in the curve between the taillight and the outer edge of the tail panel, so it would be easy to screw that up with a welder.

 

[69.5CUDA]

ya know that hood latch center support sure looks alot like a fish unit..wonder if its the same part

btw brake fluid is an excelent lazy stripper that wont hurt most things including most plastic as long as its not "clear", its what i break out when im worried about whats under the paint...but to be clear it works slow as in a soak of 24 hours will typicaly have the paint trying to just fall off, and yes you can do soaked rag soaks tho expect slower results.....ive done the rag trick on dodge truck grills and didnt hurt the bright finish under the paint

another goto of mine for "quicker" delicate stripping is "citri strip" tho they keep changing the formula, it is more agressive but still semi safe on plasitics..disscoloration of plastic seems to be the down side


have you replaced your wiper piviot shaft seals?..just askin cause they tend to leak, ...someone used to make a really good kit

 

[b-body-bob]

Yeah I noticed that early b-cudas look the same. They're pretty much the same car as the Duster IIRC, as far as the wheel openings and all that goes. I saw some Dart parts that came to a peak in the front so those definitely won't work.

I haven't changed the wiper pivots yet. That could have been where that rust came from I guess. It seemed like it got started under the seam sealer.

 

[Dr.Jass]

The Barracuda part numbers are different. I didn't specifically look for those, but the numbers in the 1967-'69 catalogs specify them for V body style only, so they don't interchange.

 

[69.5CUDA]

id love to see the valiant one side by side with a fish unit cause i honestly cant see a differance, not that i dont belive ya...just id love to know where the minor change is

imo most a-bodys that get rust in the front floors is wiper seal leak

when i did mine with the kit it was recomended to also drilled a small hole in the body of the shaft so i could pump grease into it ...quieted the wipers up and assures me that no water slips into the shaft body as well

 

[b-body-bob]

Shamalamadingdong

 

[Dr.Jass]

It looks a bit low in terms of the hood gap, but otherwise very good. 'Course, I love that grille so there's that. Is the latch bracket adjustable at all?

I was looking at the large(r than mine) rectangular holes in your fenders through which the pins are visible, and thought to myself, "Self, if a guy--such as Bob--wanted to support that area, said Bob-like guy could make small L-brackets held by the pin nuts with a stud welded to 'em to which our hero could mount the upper grille mounting brackets." Then I noticed the AMD fender doesn't have any hole a'tall, and though, "Hey, this theoretical Robert-appearing fella would only need to make one!"

 

[69.5CUDA]

agreed with doc on the gap, and i too love the early grill over all the rest demon grill included...this looks more at home in there

i think i spotted the differance in the hood latch panel..the fish unit is flat across the front lip and doesnt have that weird bolt line dip..i wonder if that dip is specificly there for the 68? valiant body panel in the middle of the grill?...to which...is my other fav valiant grill and imo would go wonderfully with your hood

 

[b-body-bob]

Gina noticed the big hood gap too.

There's no way to adjust the hood there. It's pretty much level with the fenders or will be once I get a bumper for that new fender.

I could put spacers in to raise it up but I'm pretty sure that's not worth the effort. It also needs to be checked out with the headlight buckets in. Those will raise up with the grille so it may just be the way it is.

It's about good enough (tm) for me anyway. I see I need to work on that small bend on the bottom passenger side though to see if I can get that flattened out.