Anyone ever removed the airbox damper from a US 308?

Hard to tell from your picture, but do you mean this stuff? I pulled all of this out of my '76....I understand the later cars had even more. Euro cars had nothing. It's held in with metal "mesh" that is spot-welded in place, so you need to grind the welds and remove that, then remove all of the sound deadening material. Wear a respirator because there's a decent chance that's asbestos...

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There was a thread years back where someone removed it all but I think he ended up basically buying another airbox and cutting it all apart to do it.

 

That flap+shaft+bearings are not shown in the 161/78 SPC for '78-'79 US 308 B/S as the lower air cleaner box is an unserviceable assembly (in fact, the picture of it on TAV 13 is pretty good, but they just used the older airbox in TAV 14 illustration) - you can download a copy of 161/78 from Carl Rose's website http://ferrari.cdyn.com

I can't recall if the silver bearing end caps are riveted on, or have removeable fasteners, but the bottom line is you'd need to get those off to have any hope of getting it apart. (I think I can recall I cleaned and relubricated those bearings when I restored its operation on my ex-308, but can't recall the details ).

 

Here are some photos from my spare parts bin.
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The shaft slides into a formed tube which is part of the amor box metal. the shaft has a pin through it which locks into two grooves in the formed tube. There may be rust between the shaft and formed tube and it may not scone out. There are rubber base plates under the metal bearing holders on each end. On one end of the shaft there is a threaded end which goes through the white, circular nylon holder. There is also a metal lever which will attach to the vacuum unit with a short rod which connects to the vacuum unit (no pictures of rod or vacuum unit). The other end of the shaft has a double caged ball bearing. The shaft forms the inner race (see double grooves) and the outer race is separate and pictured above. A double bearing gage holds the balls in place. The approximate size of the balls is about 3mm. I think there were 16 balls. The metal flap has a piece of rubber approximately 5mm thick which makes the seal.

My flap assembly could be rebuilt, however, I was missing the circular reservoir and fan (small cylinder). I kept my charcoal canister. On a carb car, I do feel that if you can keep the charcoal canister (there is a very good post of how to rebuild the canister) and have the vacuum operated flap function, it would minimize the gas smell after the car is shut off.

 

Try PB Blaster for a while.
Because it is flat, you can probably submerge it in a container with rust remover (I use Evaporust). Let it soak for several days.
Then heat. You may have to remove the rubber. Put a couple of nuts on the end, put the flap in a vise, apply heat and try to gently tap out the shaft. Hopefully, you will get lucky.

 

Physically Disable the flap from shutting.
I used stainless wire to prevent my flap from shutting and plugged the vacuum lines to the solenoid. If the vacuum solenoid which activates the flap ever fails and allows vacuum to the flap operator while at highway speeds it will suck the charcoal out of the canister and into your carbs.
I have the original dealer service invoice of this happening to my 308 at 7500 miles. First thing I did when I saw the invoice.
Not worth the risk and I drive it weekly to Cars and Coffee, when not raining.

 

I believe you are correct. It’s not possible.

Now that I think about it (it was quite a few years ago) I think I had to remove the shaft from the flap to remove it. Obviously, the shaft is longer than the flap and goes through each end of the air box. Not sure if the shaft has to be all the way out (maybe one side out then maneuver it out?). Either way one still has to get that shaft to move.

Sorry for the confusion. Time and old age are creeping up on me.