Yeah, that's important; it's part of the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system. Yeah, it needs to be hooked up. Boy is it a mess on your car!

There's an aluminum pipe running between the air inlet duct and the rocker cover grommet. This is the tail end of the system, the part admitting filtered air *into* the crankcase. The way it is on your car now ambient air is being sucked into the crankcase -- I hope you don't drive on dirt roads!

On your car the grommet has self-destructed and somebody tore the nipple off the air inlet duct. There used to be a spring clamp keeping the tube in the air inlet duct but that has been replaced by a screw clamp.

The PCV system was added to engines in the early 60s and it is responsible for *drastically* improving engine life by greatly reducing engine oil "sludging" when normal oil change intervals are followed.

 

Other option to getting the new grommets and hose as Craby suggested would be to buy a breather filter at a local auto parts store and install that on the valve cover and plug up the hole in the air intake tube.

 

Nice pictures, it is a lot easier to tell whats going on.

 

Thanks guys for all the help. We're hoping if whether they total the other one or not that we can get it back and we're not planning on fixing it right away anyway so we'll take some parts off it to properly fix the other one.

 

Good idea. And looking at one of the pics you posted on the previous page, grab the fasteners you need to properly secure the alternator braces. I see a couple of wild ends that should be secured.