Eneto-55

Regarding the lower corners, I do not have a 1940 parts book, but I suspect that the photo Bob posted is probably not the original weather strip. Notice the build up right at the corner, of what appears to me to be some sort of caulking. The weatherstrip on my 46 was already falling apart when I got the car, in 1980. It had a tag on it that did not belong to that car. (Oklahoma tags stay with the car if you sell it, not like Ohio, where I live now, where the tag belongs to the person, and can be transferred to a different vehicle. I don't know which states do it the way they do in Oklahoma.) That illegal tag that was on my 46 was a 76 tag. so the car was 34 years old, and had only been driven until it was around 30 years old, at most. I'm confident that what was left of the weatherstripping on my 46 is original. I think that the best way to determine what shape you need in those corners in order to stop wind noise (and water spray coming up into the car while driving in heavy rain or through puddles on the road) is to make a template of the lower part of the A pillar for the front of the front door, and the B pillar for rear of the door, then match it up to the door. On the P15, the contact area on the body of the car is out toward the corner of the door, not in at the curvature of the inner door panel. The earlier models may have been completely different - I don't know.

The best idea I have come up with for the lower corners (P15) is to try to shape pieces of foam rubber to give shape to the "one size fits all" door seal material at those points, then smear on a thin coat of black silicone rubber. But I don't know what to about the need for the metal strip in the strips below the doors, nor do I have a suggestion for adhesion in your situation. (My steering column boot already had open cracks in it when I got the car in 1980. I sanded it, then coated it lightly both inside and out with black silicone rubber, and it still looks OK now. But I'm thinking I may attempt to sew one out of leather, then coat the inside for water resistance. We have a 2019 Ram Classic, the continued 4th Gen, and soon after we bought it - used, 7 years old, salt belt owned, and with over 100,000 on the clock - the steering got really stiff. It was so bad I felt that it was getting dangerous when I made a turn onto another street or highway. I figured it was the joint in the steering shaft, and sprayed it with WD40 to be sure. I attempted to remove it, but couldn't get it to slide off of the upper shaft after loosing the clamp. So I used ATF and an old toothbrush to scrub it as well as possible, then sewed a boot out of light weight leather, greased the leather inside, filled the joint with axle grease, then sewed the boot shut, and just before the last bit of lacing it up, I shot the whole deal full of grease. It hasn't acted up at all since. In Brazil they call this a 'jeito'.)

For that span of years (1949-1954), I definitely agree. Otherwise, I call them the 'slab-sided' years.

I (sorta') apologize in advance for saying this, but the tail dragger pickups remind me of a farm dog with an itchy butt.

Different. My younger sister once said to me "You always have to be different." I suppose it's true. Back when the style was something like the 64 Malibu my older brother had then - jacked way up in the rear, I was drawing 50's style low-riders on my high school notebooks. Skirts, frenched headlights, the works. Then that stuff came back, and I turned to the stock look. (There was a 52 Chevy sitting in a farm yard along my bus route to school, and I drew that car as a low rider. My dream including cutting out most of the roof, and installing a 'cloth' insert in it, like many cars of the 30's had, including the 32 PB coupe my oldest brother had back then. Sort of like a sun roof that didn't open. I have yet to see a custom car of that vintage with that done. I'm sure someone else has had the same idea, and probably did it - I have just never seen it.)

Go to the downloads section for a scanned PDF file of that manual:

Another thing that might help would be to section the car.... (Actually followed a guy on another car forum who chopped, sectioned, and channeled a 50 Dodge. Unfortunately he passed away before he was able to complete the customization.)

I went back to the original post from 9 Foot Box, and saved it just as it is. I can open it in its original format, but my eye sight is not good enough to be sure of the numbers. (I can zoom in , but it goes all blurry.) Anyone know what book this is out of? It appears to me to be a one page bulletin, so maybe not in any book. (I was thinking that I could put the info all into a spreadsheet, and then also save it as a PDF.)

Try this: EDIT: I think it made it fuzzier - not clear.

I don't want to "throw a wrench in the works" for you, but isn't the Omni a pretty light weight vehicle in comparison to your DeSoto? (But maybe it's just around 800 pounds difference. Is that a concern? I do not know, this was just my first thought.)

We have a load leveling hitch system that came with the used camper we bought several years ago, and I thought about making or buying an extra set of the brackets that mount on the sides of the trailer tongue, so that I could put them on another trailer, and not need to move them back and forth, from one trailer to the other. An entire hitch system came up on an auction recently, and I got the entire thing for $7.00 (plus 10% buyer's fee, so $7.70). The only thing not included was the hitch ball itself. My theory is that in the long run old used tools are almost always a better deal than buying new.

I do not remember where we heard about this business in England, way back in the 'dark ages' before the internet, but back when I bought my 46 (1980) the only place we knew of where you could get mohair upholstery was in England, and it ran around $50.00 a yard. I also do not recall that we had pictures of the colors and patterns available, but I have never yet seen anything that comes even remotely close to the color mix and weave pattern of the original fabric in this P15. But it wasn't just in the case of fabrics - what ever you needed, if you couldn't find NOS parts someplace, you had to just improvise with after-market parts that were actually made for (mostly) old Fords. One result of that lack of parts availability, however, was that the perceived values of old MoPars was well below that of a Ford from the same era. Two sides of the coin. (The closest thing I've seen was the fabric used for a suit my brother-in-law was wearing when a mutual friend was being laid to rest. It's called 'suiting', but it's much lighter fabric than what would work well as seat fabric. It was the right shade of grey, and had fine lines of burgundy in it. Not exact, but pretty close.) Another difference in these intervening 45 years is that back then, bondo was king, and it was rare to find anyone who could work with lead, or do hammer welding. Now new welding technology has made it possible for the type of work done back before bondo to make a sort of comeback. (I've only ever welded with a stick welder, and a torch, but my youngest son recently started a job as a welder, and he's already done aluminum, which I always thought to be especially difficult, although I've never had the chance to try it, so I don't know first-hand.)

Aluminum rivets? (I have a bunch of stainless rivets, but my rivet gun is not hefty enough to use them. Well, actually I have done a few of them, but don't think the rivet gun will last very long if I keep doing that.) What are the original contact ends made of? A quick search shows 1/8" copper rivets on Amazon - 100 for around $29.00. Tin the wire & stick it through like you said, then cover the end with solder for what should make a good contact surface.

Never been to Maine, but it sure must be a long ways from Nebraska, and a good bit farther from Fresno. (Glad to see you back on here!)

I keep a block of canning wax handy for tapping in aluminum. I have also used bar soap to put screws into hardwoods. (I've mostly tapped holes in aluminum for 6-32, and the tap really has a tendency to clog, and it's a chore to pick it all out. Never any problem since I started using the wax.)