Sniper

Yes, well ventilated seats are a fancy thing, fancy not really being in the Neon's wheelhouse, lol. But yeah, they should have kept the Neon. My last new stick car was the 05 Neon I had. Burnt Orange, my son used to call it "The Orangey Car" Should have kept it and not traded it in.

Nice thing about old cars is that door ding in the parking lot are rare, lol. But I get what you are asking. One of the attractions of my 51 was that it was a drier. Not restored or "museum quality original" in any way. It is presentable and functional so I no problem taking it to the grocery store, or wherever, to do what I want to do.

Hmm, I live in Texas, I owned two Neon's, a 96 and an 05. Both worked well, in fact the AC was cold enough my knees would ache, favorite setting, lol. No eperience with any newer MoPar AC systems though. The 96 did shell a compressor clutch once, just went to the boneyard, got another one and swapped it myself. Only issue I ever had with the Neon's AC. Now, to the OP's questions. Just because you do not have a working AC does not mean it is low on Freon. In fact, arbitrarily adding Freon can cause more issues in more modern systems. Never do that unless you have proof it is needed. My ex's 15 GMC had no AC, gauges showed the pressures were pretty much the same on the high and low side in spite of the compressor turning. Bad compressor there. I farmed that job out. While I do have a mobile HVAC license, I do not have the equipment to service anything newer than an R12 system, which is why I got the license, to buy R12 for my Diplomat back in the 90's. Farm it out is what I would recommend. A good shop will tell you what's wrong and what it will take to fix it.

Well, if we did that then we would not be talking about bleeding brakes, lol.

Oh that's a sweet ride.

Many of my customer visits start with a 4-5 hour drive. I'd make the drive. Takes three wires to make it run, two of them being the battery cables. If he can't get the engine running, it doesn't run, period. Without a running engine, no test drive. No idea if the transmission or brakes are any good. No idea how the front suspension or rear axle have held up. All you can do is look at the cosmetics. Which are important but not everything you need to know to put a value on what you think you'd pay for it and that is the number that matters. Not what he wants, because if he's asking more than you think you want to spend there is no deal. If he's asking less, well that's up to you.

lol Your manual discusses using a compressed air bleeder. Which, imo, is the best way to do it. Your opinions are noted.

Key's on, engine isn't running, he forgets he left the key on.

Without a schematic, or poking around on a real unit to see what I can see I am not sure how you'd sort this out? But I will tell you what I did with mine, took it apart, cleaned up all the contacts, used some dielectric grease to lube the wiper assembly and it worked for the unit I have, different brand. Since then I added an aftermarket gauge bezel with built in indicators so I have that too.

Dalhart is where I bought my 51 Cambridge. Small world

Only thing I can think of is to wire the voltage supply to a key on voltage source and then an oil pressure switch (normally closed) to an oil pressure port. This way i the key is on but there is no oil pressure the chime will sound. Kind of like how the oil pressure light will come on with the key on, but engine not running, just sub in a chime instead of a light.

An induction heater to heat up that fitting and some wax on the threads might do the trick. You can get induction heaters on Amazon and a crayon will work for the wax.

You didn't look very hard. Berbaum's a some on Ebay right now. Search 1138119

A 49 Wayfarer would not have come with a factory filter, standard. So no surprise. If you have a filter assembly it may be aftermarket, in which case you need to match up what you had. My 51 came with a disposable filter housing, not made any more. So I bought one that uses replacement cartridges.

My 51's needle looked like that and the carb leaked gas when running. Rebuilt the carb, no issues in thelast 4 years.