P15 door sills revisited

[Sam Buchanan]

The front sills on my '48 were completely shot, coming all to pieces. The rear sills which are either original or repops are still in good condition. The price of new sills was cause for hesitation so I decided to try to come up with alternatives for the front sills. Here is the material I ended up using:

 

 

The vendor markets this rubber mat as running board material, I never could find it as a generic product. A 3' length of the 18" width is just right for splitting to make two sills. I used a pry bar to pop the old sills loose, the rubber is vulcanized to a metal base. Barbed pins on the bottom of the base snap into rubber grommets in the body sill. The old base could be used as a pattern for the new sills but I used poster board to customize the pattern. After the pattern was fabricated it was used to cut galvanized metal sheet to use as a new base and this was riveted to the body. Double sided flooring adhesive tape secured the new rubber sills to the galvanized sheet. The pattern of the new sills is similar enough to the old sills to be more or less compatible for my driver car.

 

 

 

The adhesive tape is really aggressive and I don't anticipate it coming loose, but if it does contact cement can be used.

 

[casper50]

looks pretty good to me.

[Eneto-55]

Hi Sam,  If the metal plates on the originals were not all rusted to bits, I'd be curious to see how they were shaped, and how much smaller than the rubber itself. Thanks.

[Sam Buchanan]

They were in bad shape and I didn't have a use for them so they got tossed......sorry.

[DonaldSmith]

Several years ago, i was privileged to get a close, hands-on look at the 1947 DeSoto Suburban in the Gilmore Car Museum. I took note of the door sill replacements, which were cut to size, but had the wider ribs at the inner and outer edges and at the windlace.  Does anyone make something like that?  Or I could settle for the 18-inch running board called out in Post No. 1 above.  It's way down my to-do list, but I can have my mind games. 

 

[MarkAubuchon]

very nice work.  I had mine redone many years and it was pricey then.  Where can you find new ones?

[Sam Buchanan]

10 hours ago, MarkAubuchon said:

very nice work.  I had mine redone many years and it was pricey then.  Where can you find new ones?

 

Andy Bernbaum has them in their catalog, $540, and here is another source for the same mats.

 

$46 for 3' of running board mat seemed like a pretty good deal to me..... 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Sam Buchanan

[woodrow]

11 hours ago, DonaldSmith said:

Several years ago, i was privileged to get a close, hands-on look at the 1947 DeSoto Suburban in the Gilmore Car Museum. I took note of the door sill replacements, which were cut to size, but had the wider ribs at the inner and outer edges and at the windlace.  Does anyone make something like that?  Or I could settle for the 18-inch running board called out in Post No. 1 above.  It's way down my to-do list, but I can have my mind games. 

 

my 48 has a replacement drivers mat like this one. it closely emulates the original but without the metal plate. it even has a little rounded edge on the outer part of the door sill that wraps over the sill edge like the original. it was done by a PO so I dont have any idea where the material was sourced. however, i will be trying to track some more down as the others are showing signs of deterioration.

[casper50]

Here's the post where I posted a couple of videos and put the contact info of the person I bought my new ones from.

 

 

[Eneto-55]

Since the thread you referred to is a couple of years cold already, I'll post this here instead, but regarding Marc's short videos of his comparison of the old step plates to the new ones he bought, It appears that the metal plates on his old ones were exposed on the bottom.  I wonder if the ones on my 46 came from a different supplier, or if his had already been replaced once before.  On mine, the metal is not visible at all on the bottom.  (That's why I asked if anyone has pictures of just the metal, to see how they were shaped, etc.)  I have never pulled them up on my 49 first series P15 (parts car), so I don't know if it was a general manufacturing change made over the years of P15 production.

[Sam Buchanan]

1 hour ago, Eneto-55 said:

Since the thread you referred to is a couple of years cold already, I'll post this here instead, but regarding Marc's short videos of his comparison of the old step plates to the new ones he bought, It appears that the metal plates on his old ones were exposed on the bottom.  I wonder if the ones on my 46 came from a different supplier, or if his had already been replaced once before.  On mine, the metal is not visible at all on the bottom.  (That's why I asked if anyone has pictures of just the metal, to see how they were shaped, etc.)  I have never pulled them up on my 49 first series P15 (parts car), so I don't know if it was a general manufacturing change made over the years of P15 production.

 

The metal was exposed on the front sills I replaced, now wondering if they were the originals. The metal apparently extended out to within ~1/4" of the edge of the rubber.

[Eneto-55]

9 hours ago, Sam Buchanan said:

 

The metal was exposed on the front sills I replaced, now wondering if they were the originals. The metal apparently extended out to within ~1/4" of the edge of the rubber.

I take it back.  I had never cleaned mine up really (after taking them off over 35 years ago), just put them away.  I cleaned up one of them now, and I'd say that while it might be coated with some sort of rubberized paint, it is not embedded as deeply as I thought, and you CAN see the form or shape of the metal plates.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Eneto-55

[Eneto-55]

I'm wondering if anyone has looked into having some repops made in some sort of flexible plastic.  Would that tend to be cheaper to produce?