The options listing for 72 Buicks shows a "Heavy Duty Air Cleaner" option. Does anyone on the list have a car with this option? What does it look like? Is it a regular air cleaner made of thicker sheet metal?
No idea if that's the heavy duty version. The one in the pic looks like the 71 Riv GS air cleaner though.
Carl, I have decoded many A-body buildsheets with this option. It was a heavier duty filter element only, everything else was the same. Duane
Thanks for the clarification! Duane, Thanks for the clarification! I have a copy of all the production figures for the '72 A-body GS cars (thanks Mike Trom). There were only 253 A-body GS cars built with "N3 Heavy Duty Air Cleaner", of those 85 also were stage 1 cars, and of those only 4 were built at the Fremont, CA plant including ours. We looked at our car and the air cleaner assy looked exactly the same as all other GS cars that we have seen. So it now makes since to me that it must just be a different element or a foam cover around the element. It's cool that our car is 1 of only 4 with this combination, unfortunately in this case it doesn't mean crap since it's just a air filter element (that's already been replaced and gone) Thanks for solving a mystery for us!
The wide snorkle aircleaner that Adam posted was predominant on '71 big Buick 455's. Got some laying around off a '71 225, Centurian, or Riv parts car, drop me an e-mail. Will consistantly pay more than e-Bay. Roger
My 2 cents...... The H.D. element was used on the 70 thru 75 all 455's......number A279C....it was a paper and polyurethene filter....GM used it from 66 thru 85........it is still available....... David
