Side pipes
Melting Slicks
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 3,345
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From: Northern MN
St. Jude Donor '13-'14-'15-'16-'17
Yes. Check the outer frame on each side. If you see where brackets have been or are still there, then the car did not originally have side pipes. If there is no evidence of brackets, either it had sidepipes originally or someone did some real good work eliminating the evidence. Also, if the car is an AO Smith, it would not have had sidepipes.
Steve
Steve
Le Mans Master
Joined: Jan 2007
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From: Prescott Arizona
The splash shields, which normally had a rubber strip stapled along one edge for cars with undercar exhaust, did not have them on cars with side exhaust since the pipe would run almost right up against them.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 3,345
Likes: 87
From: Northern MN
St. Jude Donor '13-'14-'15-'16-'17
Mine is original side exhaust and it had the splash shields. Where did you get that information?? Not questioning it, just wondering. When I tore my car down to rebuild back in 1979 I had to remove the splash shields and the car had been not run or licensed since 1972. Makes me believe that the shields were stock.
Steve
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From: North Carolina "life is good"
2025 c3 ('68-'73) of the Year Finalist - Unmodified
There would be no evidence of ground straps to exhaust pipe on the trans cross member in radio equip cars also look for repo rear valance or exhaust pipe holes glassed in and evidence of muffler hanger straps/bolts on the rear frame section.
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Mine is original side exhaust and it had the splash shields. Where did you get that information?? Not questioning it, just wondering. When I tore my car down to rebuild back in 1979 I had to remove the splash shields and the car had been not run or licensed since 1972. Makes me believe that the shields were stock.
Steve
Mine is original side exhaust and it had the splash shields. Where did you get that information?? Not questioning it, just wondering. When I tore my car down to rebuild back in 1979 I had to remove the splash shields and the car had been not run or licensed since 1972. Makes me believe that the shields were stock.
Steve
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Melting Slicks
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 3,345
Likes: 87
From: Northern MN
St. Jude Donor '13-'14-'15-'16-'17
My error, I misread the previous post about the splash shields. Also, didn't JohnZ indicate that the AO Smith plant was not tooled up to produce cars with sidepipes? At least that's what I got from some of his threads on the subject.
Steve
Le Mans Master
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From: Westport CT
the "why" is explained well by JohnZ, who has a nice picture of the notching machine that was used to create the slight relief in the sill and sill reinforcement to provide assembly clearance for the U-nuts for the side cover attachments. They didn't have such a fixture at AO Smith.
Last edited by ctjackster; Apr 8, 2008 at 10:43 AM.
Le Mans Master
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From: Prescott Arizona
Regarding the lack of those rubber seals on the splash shields, I think I read it in the NCRS 'Restorer Magazine' some years ago. I've owned only one 'factory original' side pipe car, a 66 350 horse Coupe, and after reading the Restorer found that the splash shields on that car were clean with no staples or rubber seals. They figured the rubber seal would get toasted laying up against the side exhaust pipe. Not sure if all the original side pipe cars came this way or the factory 'figured it out' sometime further into the production run.