PCV Valve

Hi was having a preventative maintenance snoop under the hood of the 71 polara 440hp and thought 'that pcv valve looks pretty old had done fluid changes and filters, plugs n leads a year back but never looked at pcv.. after reading that its a good idea to change it (cheap part) I attempted to pull the valve. With little effort :oops: the brittle plastic snapped off the outlet in the hose.. unfazed by this minor setback I grabbed some pliers that were handy and with less effort than my first attempt it proceeded to snap off the body of the valve leaving only the base barely protruding from the rubber grommet in the valve cover (maybe the message is 'if it aint broke - leave it') anyway concerned that the remaining base might disintergrate and fall through I wisely decided to apply heat (heatgun) to the hard rubber grommet - thankfully this was just the trick and softened the rubber to allow me to remove the base.

Well you might think great so what - my concern is that upon inspecting 'the assembled pieces' I thought hang on wheres the 'valve' part to this thing? what does it look like? what should I be looking for? ... looking with mounting dread at the hole going into my valve cover that I had pulled this from.. so rushed inside ..search cbodies, wiki google etc, can find many pics, all different some - like on my 71 383 polara and 74 440 monaco have a metal base plastic outlet and appear to use a spring in conjunction with valve itself, these are a little more expensive than all plastic but surely better quality? (in saying that ebay shows from $7.95 to $35.00 same part # look identical?) cheaper still summit/rockauto.

I could not find a drawing/diagram or pic showing the internals of my pcv, has anyone taken one apart that looks same as mine or have one they can look at? couldnt sleep thinking I had better pull the valve cover and look.. back to shed dropped a wrench and found a very solid metal bullet of what looked like maybe the mystery guts to this thing.. seemed a snug fit holding the broken pieces together. Great I thought, sorted.. but 'what if'??? please can any one assure me there are no other pieces to this puzzle like a small spring etc?

Also any comments on what pcv is better versus another? upon inspection mine was very clean - no sludge or gunk (ive been told if you shake it and it rattles its good to go?) If it was gunked up can you just use thinners perhaps and soak/blow it out?

Comments welcome- especially the "older Cbody soldiers" that have done some miles.
:sSig_thanks:
Author: MoparKiwi