71-72' Plymouth Air Grabber Door Gasket

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Originally there was a thin foam rubber once-piece gasket that sealed the air grabber door opening on these cars. The original part number went obsolete long ago and I see a lot A/G's running around without a gasket likely for that reason. The 71-72' Plymouth A/G door has a different footprint/gasket than the 70' Plymouth/71-72' Dodge A/G-Ram charger door which Detroit Muscle Technologies has been marketing a reproduction gasket for some time now. Jim at DMT sent me a couple of prototypes last year of the 71-72' Plymouth version for trial fitting, one of which is seen in the picture below. He says this version is ready to go at this time. Perfect fit, another one of those quality reproduction parts by DMT I don't know what I would have done without.

[bruce]

Hmmmm, now I gotta check mine... just placed an order with Jim too--the stuff to rebuild my heater box.

[Eric]

Finally, I made a template for Jim 3 or 4 years ago for this. Does he have the seal for the air grabber bubble to the top of the steel hood yet?

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Eric,
He did ask me what I knew about a bubble to hood seal/gasket in a past exchange with him on this subject. I have never seen a seal or gasket over the all these years and there isn't anything in parts diagrams indicating a seal or gasket was ever used there, not that it makes any sense to me not to. My pretty nice original bubble didn’t have any adhesive residue on that edge as it did around the door opening. I have always believed there wasn't a seal/gasket used there originally.
What do you have on such a seal? Any pictures of such a seal? I am currently running felt tape around the circumference of the bubble where bubble meets paint, more to protect the paint than anything else. I did recently request from Jim some of his gasket material to replace my felt tape. He didn’t mention anything about him having an alternative to that in my most recent exchange with him.

[NOrrTH]

This is a timely thread as I just got my bubble studs, bell nuts and springs to rebuild my Air Grabber.

How do I know my car wasnt driven after its "resto"? The bubble rubbed the paint off the hood at the back. So I was wondering if there was supposed to be a gasket/seal under it.

AND you just saved me buying the wrong A/G door gasket

[Eric]

From what I've seen on a couple original bubbles (both from 71 cars) I've taken apart, there was a foam gasket around the perimeter of the bubble that breaks at the very front (point) I assume to let water drain out.
Here are a couple photos of an original bubble I have out in the garage showing residue from the weatherstrip.

[Eric]

Also, there was a gasket between the bubble and the underhood fiberglass duct (adhered to the duct).

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Thanks for posting the pics, looks like to me there was something like a generic foam tape weather-stripping applied just inside the contact edge. May have helped to keep water from getting under the bubble but positioned as it appears, it certainly would not have isolated the bubble itself from riding directly on the paint surface around the outer edge. I suppose if the density and thickness of the foam tape were just right, placed on the shoulder just inside the outer edge, it would hold the bubble just off the paint and adequately seal the bubble to the hood. Whatever was used there, I have never been able to locate a part number for it, my experience is that many of the generic adhesive tapes and foam tape weather-stripping used to build these cars were never serviced with a part numbers as it was assumed generic replacements were pretty easy to source locally. The original bubble I have was claimed to be NOS and never to have been installed before, I do have my doubts about that, but it may explain why it does not have residue evidence of a seal installation.

Our first attempt to recreate the original appearance of the textured orangasol black using modern paints on the A/G bubble failed, as some small blistering developed in the primer underneath over the summer. I will be pulling it apart this spring to repaint the bubble and replace the felt tape currently separating the bubble from the paint.

The air box, or under hood duct piece, to bubble gasket is also available from Jim (DMT). He has marketed that gasket for some time, it is the same gasket used for the 70' Plymouth.71-72' Dodge Ram Charger application. Same air box and when used for that app. it seals directly to the underside of the hood, same stud pattern.

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Follow-up; completed the re-paint of my Air Grabber last week, had some primer issues first go round. I had asked Jim at Detroit Muscle Technologies about providing some foam tape to recreate the “seal” between the bubble and hood, along with his other reproduction A/G gaskets, thought I would post some pictures of how it turned out. I see he is now marketing a prepackaged version of this tape for this application through his E-bay store.

[71Runner]

72RoadRunnerGTX, I never tire from looking at that car.