I was finally able to make a deal on this 1973 Plymouth Duster. It's a very clean car from out west with some cool options. The only option I wish it had is power disc brakes.
I got the car for somewhere between $750 and $901.46. The $901.46 is actual cash investment to get the car which included buying the previous owner a new aluminum radiator for his 1989 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, ~$100.00 in computer parts from eBay/TigerDirect, and I traded him a 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L Magnum that I just bought for $600.00 about two weeks ago. This is where my low end figure factors in because I was able to remove a few parts I wanted off the 2001 2500 to install on my 2001 Ram 1500 including: the 34 gallon fuel tank (which had 30 gallons of fresh fuel in it), Dana 60 anti-spin 4.10:1 rear axle, HD rear springs, ...
















V: Make, Model (Plymouth Valiant, Duster)
L: Price class (Low)
29: Roof type (2 Door sports hardtop)

C: Engine size (225 cubic inch single 1-bbl. L-6 cylinder w/ 105 net horsepower)
3: Model year (1973)
B: Production plant (Dodge Main, Hamtramck, MI, USA)

XXXXXX: Sequence number (vehicle specific VIN)


E24: 225 cubic inch single 1-bbl. L-6 cylinder w/ 105 net horsepower
D34: Light duty automatic transmission
JY9: Dark Gold Poly

C6L3: Vinyl bucket seats, parchment color interior
000: Full door panels
220: Build date: February 20, 1973
430161: Order number

V1L: Full vinyl top, champagne color
U: Built to USA specifications
C16: Console with woodgrain panel
C56: Bucket seats
F13: 60 Amp alternator

G01: Heated rear window defogger
G33: Left hand remote mirror
L25: Trunk light
L31: Fender mounted turn signals
M21: Roof drip rail mouldings
M52: Manual sunroof with full vinyl top

R11: Solid state AM radio (2 Watts)
V5X: Body side stripes, black (I'm guessing this is for the side moulding, NOT a stripe)
EN2: End of sales codes


At this point I'm keeping things simple, inexpensive, and using up the parts I already have to make a great running/cruiser.
I just put 4 new tires on it and a full tune up for the previous owner not long ago so it needs no work there.
Needing immediate attention are the roof skin and floors. They need to be cleaned up before the damage that has been done over the past 6 years gets any worse.
The stock 7-1/4" axle with 2.7X gears and an open differential is noisy and has the 5 x 4.0" bolt pattern so instead of replacing the bearings, I'll just swap it out for the 3.55:1 Trac_Lok 8-1/4" axle I have that has already been retro-fitted with all new discs. This 8-1/4" rear axle swap will also upgrade the bolt pattern to the standard Mopar/Ford 5 x 4.5".
The front end will also receive a big bolt pattern upgrade courtesy of a 1973-76 factory disc brake set-up replacing the original small bolt pattern drum brakes.
The new bolt pattern necessitates new wheels so I will install a set of factory Rallye wheels or possibly a set of Magnum 500 wheels, both of which I have sets of.
I'd like to do a shift kit and install my double row roller timing set & my pieced together performance 'Super Six' 2-bbl. conversion which is mostly still hanging around here, though I need an intake manifold. Once that happens a I'll have to fabricate a 2.25" - 2.5" exhaust system for it. It's undecided if I'll have the dedication to have my new bronze guides and oversized (1.70" I / 1.44" E) stainless steel valves installed in the head, but if want arises I have them on the shelf still.
Other than that I'll just slowly pick away at it, doing the usual clean up, correcting some wiring issues, and fixing things like worn out bushings, and keeping it a basic driver with a bit more power than stock.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

Nice! Sounds like you got a Duster with the "Convertriple" package. Very cool.

Could you post some pictures of the heated rear window defogger? I would be interested to see (a) what it looks like and (b) how it is mounted with a fold down rear seat.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yes, it has the fold down rear seat and sunroof like the convertriple package cars, however the convertriple package was Dodge Dart Sport only.

This is my second 1973+ A-body Duster that has the fold down rear seat option and the rear window defogger option. My 1974 Duster 360 4-speed car also has it.
There is nothing to mount, they have in glass elements like modern vehicles.
This is also why both of these cars were optioned with the 60+ Amp alternators. It was required with this style rear window defroster.

The 1973 Duster:







The 1974 Duster 360 4-speed:

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

Awesome car!

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

way to trade,,you have a couple of nice Dusters,
back in the day I had a 72 "Gold Duster" had the Alice Cooper snake skin top, was a slant six 4 speed car,, another one I should have kept...

Nice! I have only ever seen ONE other A body with the electric grid defroster. It was a 74 Dart my brother and I pulled out of the woods to part out for his 68 Dart. It was originally sold in New York which was why it had the electric grid defroster.

That's right, the Convertriple package on the Duster was the "Space Duster."

Very nice Duster, you lucky dog!

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Thanks guys.

My 1974 Gold Duster had the half vinyl top that was snake skin. Now it's just painted black.

I had no idea the in glass defroster was so different.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

Looks good. Is that a Washington car? Plates look familiar...

The roads cleared up in late March so I finally went out and picked up the car.







This car was born with a measly 105 horsepower @ 4,000 RPMs & 185 Lbs/ft. of torque @ 1,600 RPMs. While I am not going to be working any miracles with this as a starting point I would like to make it be able to keep up with traffic from a stoplight.

With that in mind I made a deal and purchased an AussieSpeed Hurricane 2-bbl. long runner intake manifold. It has never had a carburetor mounted to it so I paid the the price which happen to be $376.00 shipped. The long runner 2-bbl. intake will add a power throughout the entire RPM range and being a 2-bbl. set up should even add a couple hundred RPMs to the top end once all is said and done. Most of the power added will be in the low to mid range, right where it needs to be, thanks to the near equal length runners which are a huge improvement over the factory set-up.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

I purchased a brand new Holley 2300 series 350 cfm 2-bbl. street performance carburetor (#7448) for the car from Speed Unlimited off eBay for $290.83 shipped.
The Holley 2300 series carburetors are basically the front half of their infamous 4150 double pumper carburetors. They share the same primary metering blocks, center hung floats, 'V' fuel bowl, metering block & fuel bowl gaskets, same needle & seat(s), and the same jets as the 4-bbl carbs.
Out of the box the 350 cfm unit comes with manual choke, a 61 jet, and a 30cc accelerator pump. Both stock butterflies are 1.690" (11/16") which are the same size as a standard Holley 650/750 cfm double pumper carburetor.
They also have the standard 5-1/8" air cleaner flange so it will fit any standard 4-bbl. air cleaner, factory or aftermarket, which is a huge plus.
Holley rates the cfm of it's 4-bbl. carburetors @ 1.5" Hg pressure drop and their 2-bbl. carburetors @ 3.0" Hg pressure drop, so they are not an equal comparison when looking directly at the numbers.
Here is a breakdown showing the flow ratings of the original slant six carburetors compared against the Holley 2300 series #7448:

.......Carburetor.............................cfm @ 3.0" Hg...............cfm @ 1.5" Hg
Carter BBS (/6 1-bbl.)..............................200..............................141
Carter BBD ('Super Six' model)................285..............................202
Holley 1920 (/6 model)............................185..............................131
Holley 1945 (/6 1-bbl.)............................170..............................120
Holley 2300 (#7448)...............................350..............................248

As you can see upgrading from my stock Holley 1945 single barrel carburetor to this unit I gained an amazing ~105.5% increase in cfm.
This carburetor also bests the factory Carter BBD 'Super Six' piece with a cfm increase of ~22.5%!








In order to install my AussieSpeed Hurricane aluminum intake manifold I need new gaskets. I ordered intake/exhaust manifold gasket and a hot box gasket. I went with the premium performance graphite gaskets for both places from HEMI Performance.
These gaskets have optimum "crush" value ensuring a tight seal for flawless results.
The gasket material is a perforated stainless steel insert sandwiched between two layers of flexible graphite to ensure that they have a super high heat tolerance like no other replacement gasket.
~$50.00 shipped from Australia. Shipping ended up costing the same amount as both gaskets did.









I also picked up this Hughes Engines slant six double row true roller timing set. They had the best price, had them in stock, and they had a free UPS shipping deal which brought the total to $49.50 shipped. I got the last one and they are not going to carry them anymore.







I came across a few sets of flow numbers for the factory slant six head.
This was what I felt the most accurate representation of a completely stock slant six head and was done on a quality bench by a very experienced tech.
Stock valve, stock ports, stock runners, and the spark plug was in.

@ 62.5 degrees and 28" water; performed on a calibrated Superflow 600.

Lift.........Intake CFM.......Exhaust CFM
.100"............51...................31
.200"............99...................52
.300"...........131...................65
.400"...........140..................109
.500"...........146..................114
.600"...........147..................115


It's a wonder these poor engines can make any power at all. Oversized valves and quality head work are a necessity to make any power at all on a n/a slant six.
With this in mind I decided to purchase an oversized valve kit for my little 225 leaning tower of power. There are no aftermarket head offerings for this engine and even if there were I sure wouldn't want to shell out that kind of cash for one anyways. There are a few slant six performance shops that can port your factory head, however they charge $600.00-1,500.00 depending on how much flow you want. As neat as these slants are I am not that dedicated and could have some awfullly nice SB or BB heads for that much coin. I decided to just do a simple port match, have my local machine shop install a set of over-sized valves (1.70" intake & 1.44" exhaust), and blend the bowls to match. Mopar used to make these same size valves but quite selling them back in the early 90's as demand was just not there anymore. My Mopar Performance engine guide states they showed a 23% increase in intake port flow and a 34% increase in exhaust port flow simply by using their O/S valves and having them backcut. The valves I purchased already come with a backcut which saves a little machine work ($$$) on my end. They are stainless steel and CNC machined. They came with heavy duty locks and maganese bronze guides. They are very nice, and I have ordered from this manufacture for other V8 head/engine builds.
Since the head will be coming off now is the time to get it shaved (~.065").
The slant sixers say the valves, port matching/bowl blending, and shaved head makes a massive difference, but I'm not expecting any miracles.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

Made some good progress on the car, nothing drastic just a few small things.

First order of business was to clean the filth out of the car. Several overflowing boxes of trash, a laundry basket with nasty dirty clothes, a couple pair of nasty/rank work boots, a feces filled diaper among many other fine treasures all added to the fine aroma.
Once it was no longer filled with biohazard and garbage I started removing the previous owners wiring nightmare and correctly repaired the under-hood wire harnesses back to their original state.
Then I pulled the steering column apart and replaced the ignition switch and harness as the harness had partially melted with one I removed from a spare steering column I had.




Once the battery was charged up the car would once again start and run as intended. I reassembled the rest of the dash that was already apart and moved on to the next small project which was removing the carpeting.
It had been dry/sunny and 80 degrees for a week before I picked up the car, and then the car has been inside the shop since (about two weeks now) and there was still a lake under the carpet once removed. I was shocked at how much standing water was under there as the top layer of carpet was seemingly dry.
I noticed none of the lights worked, and had to replace literally every single bulb in the entire car including: headlights, tail lights, blinkers, marker lights, interior lights, ... I have no idea what happened nor have I ever seen a vehicle where all the bulbs have been blow out before. At least they are all working now.
All four marker light lenses are broken/cracked but I had two nice ones on the rear of a parts car I am currently parting out so this was a quick/easy change.
It was now time to re-install the seat tracks & seats. This went straight forward and it was nice not to have the seats rocking around on the floorboards.
The car had no brakes so I decided to swap the master cylinder to this lightweight 2-bolt aluminum piece with billet aluminum 4-bolt to 2-bolt adapter since the original was already bone dry.






Next up was the rear leaf springs. There was nothing wrong with the originals and in fact they are in outstanding shape, however they were super soft 4-leaf units and I already had the 6-leaf pieces off my 1974 Duster 360 sitting right there.





This turned out to be a little bit of a job as I had to completely take apart both set-ups because I wanted to use the best of the parts from each (hangers, shackles, bushings, bolts, nuts, ...). I was hoping it would lift the back of the car a bit, and it came out perfect. It has a nice no sag stance to it without having that "jacked up" 70's/80's look.


The lightweight high torque mini starters started coming as factory equipment in the 1980's. I pulled this one off the 1999 Dodge RamVan 2500 I parted out last fall. Unfortunately in 1999 they redesigned the exciter wire stud terminal connection to a plug in type. Instead of getting hasty and using spade connectors, I decided to wait until I can stumble upon the (correct) opposite connector/pigtail for it and have a nice locking clip connection.




The car is nearing road readiness again!

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

I purchased this MSD Blaster 2 coil today from AdvanceAutoParts.com and picked it up in the store about 30 minutes later. It puts out 45,000 volts and has a turns ratio of 100:1. I used it to bring my order total high enough to qualify to save $20.00 off the order immediately and I also get a $50.00 coupon towards a future purchase of $100.00 or more.







I purchased this mint pair of A-body chrome sport mirrors off eBay a while back. They will be perfect for this car.









These brand new Monroe 'Gas-Matic' premium replacement front shocks carry a lifetime warranty and didn't cost me a penny. There were just installed by the previous owner on a Duster I am parting out, so they were swapped onto this car.







I also removed a pair of .870" A-body torsion bars from the same Duster that the new shocks came from. They are a little beefier than the stock 6-cylinder (non-A/C equip'd) torsion bars for marginally improved handling.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

The stock 7-1/4" axle is noisy so instead of spending money on it I removed an 8-1/4" unit out of another car I had. I also decided to do a disk brake swap using the Jeep Grand Cherokee set-up as opposed to going through the drum brakes since it would likely end up being about the same price.
I bought these pieces from a salvage yard in TN (or KY?) for around $150 shipped! As you can see the rotors, calipers, and brackets were mint.


"Empty" housing:







Remove the drum brakes & backing plates:






Install disc brake backing plates: (make sure you slighly enlarge the center bore so it snuggly fits onto the axle housing)






Install the axles back in:






Install the brake rotors, loaded calipers, and hook up the brake lines & parking brake cable (if your rear is already in the car):





Now I just need to get some brake pads (they were suppose to be included but weren't GRRR!) and turn the rotors.
I am not going to run the parking brakes so I will remove that entire assembly from the set-up.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

Here are a couple photos I took of the new Dana/Spicer Trak_Loc differential I installed.











I bought this set of used 3.55:1 gears off eBay for $60.00 shipped:







Everything installed:







It was now time for the final assembly so I went to Advance Auto Parts today and picked up a 2 quarts of Mobil-1 synthetic 75w90 gear lube for the rear differential. $23.09 out the door for both quarts.







I also bought this bottle of K&W 'TransX' gear oil treatment (limited slip differential additive). The price was $6.04 including tax.







I purchased these National axle seals for $5.13 / pair. Cheap insurance against any leaks.







To complete the rear axle assembly I also got some Wagner ThermoQuiet premium semi-metallic brake pads for the rear. $36.37 out the door wasn't a bad price.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)

I got the caliper brackets ready for final assembly and bolted on "permanently". I drilled out the rivets that were holding on the backing plates/dust shields onto the brackets and tossed them. I also removed the parking brake assembly and cut off a couple dead weight pieces that were factory casted as part of the brackets that I wasn't going to reuse to help keep them as light as possible.











All together:







I used new replacement factory 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee left and right rear brake hoses to finish it up. $38.00 out the door from Advance Auto Parts.

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1969-1/2 Dodge Super Bee A12 (440 Six Pack, 4-spd, Dana 60)
1974 Plymouth Duster 360 (4-spd, 8.75")
1973 Plymouth Duster (225, auto, 8.25")
2001 Dodge Ram 1500 QC 2wd (5.9L, auto, Dana 60)