Lower front dust shields 1965

[Rich Ober]

Need help regarding the rubber or lack there of on the lower front dust shields when the car has side exhaust. I have heard strong arguments both ways. Can anyone help answer this question once and for all is this a case where Ed on the line put them on on Mondays and Fridays. The car is a coupe, 1965.

Thank you for all replys.

[Robert C.]

Re: Lower front dust shields 1965

Rich, There was NO rubber on the small triangle splash shields if the car came originally with side pipes. Is there some kind of question about this? Don't think so.....

[David H.]

Re: Lower front dust shields 1965

Rich;

I have a fuel coupe that falls in the controversy zone, ser.# 9038, and the sheilds do have the seals and staples but are bent up away from the exhaust. The car is one of the earliest with side exhaust, according to stamp reveiw manager: Al Grenning, and has never been restored or apart until the last 3 years where I have taken the restoration over from the previous owner who had the car since 82 and has been a lead Bloomington gold judge for some time. He said do not let anyone tell you that the sheilds are wrong and Al G. agreed to that. He said that the early S.E. cars would burn the seals and there were so few at the begining that the repairs or modifications were done at the dealer and differ in many ways: from removal of the entire sheild to pulling the rubber off to what ever was needed to prevent the rubber from burning.

Since there were only 287 small blocks and 472 big blocks with S.E. you can see how the change would take place over a period of time. If your ser.# is low then you could be a help to the hobby if your car has original S.E.. Generally cars bellow ser.# 10k have difficulty proving the S.E. availability issue as they fall before March, when the B.B. came out.

You can go with the judging manual on this one and avoid the problems, after all seals can't burn if they're not there, and they were removed at the factory eventually along with any staple holes of coarse. There are more threads on this. David

[Rich Ober]

Re: Lower front dust shields 1965

Thanks Bob and David,

My Friend has an un-restored 67 coupe, 427/400 glide with factory side exhaust and the rubber seals are installed on his car. He has owned this car since 1971 and I believe it has never been touched. This is where some of these questions have come from. Maybe 67's were different?

[Robert C.]

Re: Lower front dust shields 1965

Is it possible that your friend could have thought the car came with side exhaust and the previous owner had added them? Even when the car was new at the dealership.

[Jack H.]

Untrue, in my book....

"There was no rubber on the splash shields". Look at your AIM (both '65 and '66). You'll see the addition of a running change ECR adding a note in late '65 production era telling assy workers to remove the rubber gaskets from the splash shields.

My uncle bought his car new. He took it back to the dealership on more than one occassion complaing the car SMELLED. Dealership folks simply told him that's the way things were.

When I did restoration on my uncle's '65, the original splash shields had oozed, melted, puddled rubber right above where side exhaust pipes ran. I re-used the original splash shields and laid in fresh rubber + bead blasted and refreshed the paint on the splash shields.

I took deduction after deduction from NCRS and NCCB judges telling me the splash shields never had rubber gaskets on 'piper' cars. Sooooo, I removed the gaskets to make judges happy. Then, I got 'hit' because there were staple holes in my splash shields....

Finally, I THREW AWAY the factory original splash shields, installed fresh/new reproduction splash shields and everyone was 'happy' with my restoration.... Later, I would find the running change documented in the AIM books. Just happens to coincide with the time period in '65 when late spring/early summer is upon us and folks are running cars with top down/windows open en masse....

[Rich Ober]

Re: Lower front dust shields 1965

Thanks Bob,

I'll check with my friend, but I think he has checked all the normal things that would indicate it had been changed. Also I believe the tank sticker confirmed the side pipes 427/400 etc. Again, my 30 years of looking/owning these cars has always proven exceptions to any and all "rules". It's the standard or norm that I'm trying to confirm. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience.

Rich

[David H.]

Re: Untrue, in my book....

Jack; could you respond with your ser.# or at least the month of production for your car? Mine is feb./5/65 Thanks; David

[Loren L.]

If you examine the N14

sheets and the Revision Record in the 1966 AIM, you will find that the drawing eliminating the rubber was revised on 6-17-65. This drawing does NOT appear in the 1965 AIM, although there are other revisions in the 65 AIM that are cited after that date. I would surmise that AT BEST it was a running change in 1965 and PERHAPS did not take effect until the 1966 model year.

[Robert C.]

Re: The Guys may be right for 65's but not 67's! *NM*

[Jack H.]

Re: If you examine the N14

Yep, that's what I found (late in the '65 MY build).... As Art Armstrong has pointed out, the AIM books we work with are rather sloppy and incomplete having come from here/there and 'frozen' in time based on how well the donating individual maintained his/her updates. That's one of the reasons I buy THREE AIM books for a given car (the year of the car, the year prior and the year after) because sometimes you stumble across a running change that isn't in the book for your car's year of production.

Also, note designers would have been in a hot & heavy drawing release mode to support model change over for '66 cars at this point in the '65 MY build cycle (June of '65). It lends credance to the fact the running change happened during warm weather season with car's being operated top down/windows open....

Probably says there were a handful of side exhaust '65 cars that got shipped with bare splash shields, no rubber, but WITH staple holes since before the running change happened all splash shields were pre-configured with the rubber attached....

[artarmstrong]

Re: If you examine the N14

I have checked my 1965 NPC (Notice 0f Production Change) documents for anything on this Splash Shields and none was found. The NPC's were utilized in the plant as a heads up document. It ment that a change to the AIM could and or would be forthcoming.

Art

[John H.]

Re: If you examine the N14

The staple holes in the splash shields were created at St. Louis when the rubber seals were stapled in place in an off-line subassembly; a splash shield that never had a seal stapled to it would not have any staple holes in it. The pneumatically-driven stand-mounted staplers for this operation were made by Bostitch, and were fed by large spools of staple wire - they'd staple through just about anything.