A few people have asked about the “coloring” of the Tape that covered the Vent hole. I have seen both Tan & Black Tape used to cover the opening. The Tape was snapped from a roll dispenser and had serrations at the ends. It was not painted on the Rear Housing because that would have sealed the Tape to the tube and caused a hard, encapsulated covering of Paint. That would have made it much harder to push the Vent Tube through the hole and caused paint debris to fall into the opening. Keep in mind that the purpose of the Tape was to keep contamination from getting inside of the Axle Housing.
Below are a couple of pictures showing original examples of this Tape detail. Also shown is the restored version of my 1970 Valiant. In contrast to the previous pictures posted earlier, we decided to swap out the black Tape with the tan color material. You will also notice in those previous photos, that no serrations or “torn edges” were evident. I originally wanted the Tape to slightly differ from the Factory examples. This was done to coincide with our Concept theme. Instead, we are now going to use the same serrated ends that have been documented on the Factory originals. I’ll have updated photos of the 4 Door example soon.
