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Pics are from my March '61 270HP car. Looking at GM 3737028 on page A99 of the AIM it's difficult to see fine detail but I measure the plug bracket angle to be about 140 degrees. I made a small template and that approximately matches mine. But comparing the location of the plug bracket on mine to pics from THOYER and Rich5962 in another post there's an apparent discrepancy. The tube is bolted into the block. So what's your take on my road draft tube? And yes - some cleaning is needed.
John, that road draft tube should have a bracket towards the bottom near the starter that holds it to the bell housing. That should move things over for your shielding to align.
Back at it after a long road trip. Looking at rich5962 pic the exhaust is outboard of the draft tube and the bracket is to the attached to the same starter bolt as my real factory AIM shows. Attached is a loose positioning of the bracket but rich's tube appears to be longer than mine. My RH pipe exhaust has obviously moved since is was installed a few years ago. I think step 1 is to loosen this side of the exhaust with the goal of getting it to not touch the frame and to allow the draft tube bracket to be installed on the lower bolt. Thoughts? And a question - do I seem to have the correct road draft tube? Note that the exhaust is a supposedly a 100% reproduction of the original 270HP system.
I'm pretty sure as I pictured to the starter bolt like my '59 270hp. I let someone borrow my 61 AIM but John said it's like that in his AIM.
John, My draft tube is a repro so uncertain about length. When I got my car 35 years ago, it had the PCV '62 fitting at the top of the block vapor passage with a heater hose down to the frame for a draft tube. Kept the frame nicely oiled though....lol.
I saved that fitting for years, and ended up using it on my '57 Coronado Ford tbird Y-Block vapor recovery mod I did. It was a real stinkpot before that.
This is page 99 from my AIM. As noted the next bolt has the ground strap on my car. My engine which is original to the car was separated from the car for many, many years. I have no idea if the draft tube is correct but I think it is. I'm moving forward with the exhaust and trying to get everything to fit. Might need to go visit my neighbor who has a '60 270HP that seldom leaves his shop.
Got the right hand side exhaust loose and so it looks like this - definitely shorter than rich's. The boards are exhaust shims before I tighten it down. If I remove the draft tube would someone be able to tell me if it's correct. I could grid it out.
Last edited by johngammel; Apr 27, 2021 at 01:39 PM.
Reason: fix spacing / attachment
These are RH pics. The orange scribe is in the thread. My thought is that the draft tube is way too far over - likely because it's incorrect. Thoughts?
Easy peazy to get out even with the starter installed - I was just super careful with the bolt and nut. It doesn't look like the GM 3737028 found on some vendor website and it doesn't match the 45 degrees described. So, is this a correct '61 road draft tube. I'm thinking it's from a passenger car.
That helps - mine is clearly different. Page 181/182 are missing from my book - weird. Note that years ago I took my book apart, reinforced every page and three hole punched it.
Last edited by johngammel; Apr 28, 2021 at 02:16 PM.
Found - someone (me?) put it back in the wrong place - maybe one disadvantage of punching it.
On a note: the draft tube that I have is an apparent match for BelAir/Impala 58-62. I'll post in parts for a # 3737028 and I'm asking local people as well - there are so many 283s sitting in garages here it's actually amazing.. Something I don't understand is there's no washer where it mates on the block.
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'61 RH Vertical Shielding
