Anyone have a picture of the foam on the Shaker baseplate?

A guy at Carlisle showed me his. It was the black plasticy poly foam. Looked like it was made from a strip and but spliced. He said it was OEM and it LOOKED old/original.

A resto guru just asked me to make some for him but he said they should be made from a fine celled black foam rubber?

Below is a picture of the ones I made. The one I show a black plastic laser cut piece in the middle simulating the dimensions of the raised lip that this foam piece sits over/around.

Anyone have a good picture of an original.

Here's a couple of pics I took last year when I had my shaker apart. I don't know if they'll help. I've never replaced the foam your talking about in the 44 years I've owned the car. If you need a better pic, I can take it apart and get you one. I can also get a close-up if needed. Terry

Looking at my pics that are not resized to post here and magnifying them, my original looks like a much smaller cell type foam than the ones you made.
Terry

I agree. Just from that one picture it looks more like a fine celled foam rubber than the one I saw.

Thanks guys!

PS What is that oval hole and what is that foam sealing?

That is the warm air door. It is operated by a cable that alternately opens the warm air door, the cold doors in the scoops close, and keeps warm engine air from entering the intake tract.

When the warm air door opens, it allows the warm air to enter the carb instead of the cold outside air. In the winter of 1973-74, I was stationed in upstate New York and the temperature got down like 15 deg below zero and I had left the Shaker cold air doors open. Needless to say, when I got up to about 50 mph, I started having problems but as soon as I hit the cable to open the warm air door, the problem with the gas freezing went away. I learned it really works.
Terry

You're on the right track Jim.
Here's some pictures of an original that I removed from an adapter ring.

"Cool" story.

Jim, the foam used to make those gaskets was formed inside a mold so the chemicals were injected, blended, and cured against the side walls of the molds which effectively made the outer skin that contacted the walls a closed cell appearance. The foam itself was quite soft and spongy durometer wise, and had a very fine open cell size.

Which brings up the question, should I leave my original on my baseplate in the condition seen in my pics above (it was still soft/pliable) or replace it with a reproduction?
Terry

If it's still soft and is not falling apart from dry-rot, I would leave the original intact. I doubt many cars have their original seals left, so your car would have that as part of its uniqueness.

Leave it there, generally not as good of a future in repro parts.

Agreed

Great pictures as usual Terry! Thanks! You must have a Mopar parts MUSEUM up there.

I had someone measure the lip it fits around so I have that dimension. Thats the black laser cut template in my picture. They also measured the thickness to be about .340" and the height to be about .860" Can you confirm Terry?

Also I see the "molded in" (tongue in cheek) butt splice Scott spoke of Actually I'd bet it was a strip of material (low durometer EPDM foam rubber) that was butt spliced and glued to the baseplate with 3M weatherstrip adhesive.

I remember the one I saw had a dimple in the front edge but I was told that was from the shaker top (?) pressing into it. That the dimple wasn't cut or molded in.

Jim
I can just send you this one if you like and you can take all the measurements you need.
When finished just return it and we'll be good

That'd work!

In these two pics, you can see where the seal contacts the door assembly and the bolt for the ground strap presses into the foam gasket

Jim, molded in a straight length(s) as a profile, then butt joint glued into the rounded shape. Tongue out of cheek

Fram wisely decided to have the glued seam face the rear of the adapter when installed or would have chewed up and split open pretty fast with contact from the ground strap stud/nut.

Terry has all the cool chit!

In 1975, I had gotten tired of my shaker 71 Challenger vert and tried to trade it in on a new 1975 Berlinetta Camaro but the dealer would only give me $800 trade in. I walked away disappointed. Now, 41 years later, I'm glad I didn't go through with the deal. At my age, it's getting harder for me to shift the 4 speed but everyone who see's it remarks how cool to see a blue shaker vert. In July of last year, I took delivery on my 2015 B5 blue Shaker Challenger R/T with the A8 tranny. A totally different beast to drive but still the new Shaker is cool to look at also.
Terry

Update! Sending this to be test fit. If fit and appearance is confirmed by well known resto guru then I'll return a couple with the one Terry (mccannix) lent me.

That looks great. Be sure to let us know when they're available. I'll be sure to get one to have on hand in case mine ever falls apart. Thanks.
Terry

Mine is missing completely....so I'll be needing one also.

Ditto!!

Maybe wetsuit foam material? looks more like the originals I have seen...

Mark

Count me in for a couple Jim.

Wetsuit foam rubber is Neoprene. There are so many different versions of all of these foam rubbers. Thousands. When I first started I was asked very specific, technical questions. I didn't have a clue but am MUCH more knowledgeable now. I have a large lateral file cabinet full of samples of rubber, foam rubber, gasket papers, chipboard, insulation. In fact I need a larger cabinet.

The material I used for this is a medium-low density (I can't give the specific durometer in Shore A00 scale for trade secret reasons - others will have to go through their own expensive learning curve ), EPDM foam rubber. And there are no less that 1000 versions of these foam rubbers from different manufacturers. The material I purchase is THE most expensive. About 3X similar looking, cheap neoprene that shrinks about 5% and tears relatively easily.

I'm sure the modern materials are better and more durable than anything that was available back in 1970.

I just received new samples yesterday of the gray foam rubber used on most Mopar and Ford taillight lense gaskets. Again, more expensive (the prices on these materials have gone up 250% since I started about 10 years ago). The new samples had better tensile strength, less water absorption, less compression set and still look like the OEM/NOS materials. The biggest difference is the sheets are MUCH more consistent looking from batch to batch than anything previously available. Much more consistent PPI (pores per inch) and color.

PS I could also use a piece of a shaker hood seal. The large extruded foam rubber. I want to add to my parts database. It'll never be as complete as Terry's (meccannix) but I'm trying

Jim

My database consists of just being fortunate enough to visit Fram numerous times in the early 80's and come away with all the stories and some reference material, among other things
Just as a matter of interest, there were 2 different versions of the shaker seal from the original vendor.
They were in Virginia and starting in early 1969, sent Fram the rubber, in rolls of 1000 feet.
Fram cut them to length and glued them with 3M yellow glue.
The early assembly line shaker seals were taller as seen in the photo and had a different, larger font stamp used on them.
I don't know when the cutoff was were they became slightly shorter height wise but the material appears the same in both.
The odd one you find today in NOS form are always the shorter version.
If I can find an end picture of both you can see the difference better.