donny-b Posted March 3, 2021 Report Share Posted March 3, 2021 As I am a recent owner of a 1948 Plymouth Club coupe, and have no previous experience with the 40's-50's Mopar's, I need a little help. Since my 48 had rust damage to the inside cowl airbox, I removed it along with the heaters, vents, etc. Is it possible to remove the plate directly under the exterior cowl vent? The plate has some rust damage and I want to restore it to a better condition. I purchased both service manual and body parts manual but neither have a diagram of this component or how it can be removed. Any help would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Amster Posted March 27, 2021 Report Share Posted March 27, 2021 I just took posession of a 1947 Dodge 3 window coupe and i just started a survey of what it's going to take to put it in shape; I think i have the same issue that your post describes. Please let me know if I'm correct. The first pic shows the view looking up from the floor under the dashboard. Although there is a drain on the far right side, the bottom of the plenum and the damper are rotted away. It looks like the plenum can be removed and replaced fairly easly although the big dashboadr support in the center and the heater/defroster plenums may need to be removed. Compared to modern cars, there's a lot of space to work under the dash (thankfully). The next two pics are left and right sides in a little more detail. I am looking for a replacement plenum on this website and aaca.org as well as a few folks that i know who are old car buffs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donny-b Posted March 28, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2021 Hello, Your air handler looks about the same as mine did. I took the entire heater box out of the car to repair the plenum. Everything is easy to unbolt if the fasteners are not rusted fast. Everything but the connection directly under the cowl can be removed. Hence my problem. The rectangular box is very rusty and needs to be replaced. From what I see on the outside, the rectangular frame is spot welded in place. I am going to sandblast the area to find the spot welds and drill them out. Then I can fab a new box and re-weld in place. Instead of making the entire plenum, I fabricated a lower section of 18ga steel and fit it to the top section. It was a bit time consuming and is far from perfect, but it does the job. At present, I have not seen any aftermarket replacement plenums for sale or the part welded under the cowl. If you find a source, please let me know. Thank you, Donny-b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Amster Posted March 29, 2021 Report Share Posted March 29, 2021 I haven't gotten that far yet. I will not need the heat or defrosters to drive the car, so i think i'm going to remove the blower motors next (i have to refinish the cases anyway). I imagine that there is a sleve from the cowl down to the top of the plenum. If that's correct, i can see that being spot welded to the cowl where there is very limited access to screw or bolt it (and they wouldn't want a fastener that can work itself loose. I will start looking for a replacement and let you know what (if anything) i find. Are you on the AACA.org website? There's a lot of information and resources on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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