My wife grew tired of all the DeSoto seats, door panels, and upholstery cluttering up the house, so I've been working on that more than the car itself. I used the original vinyl, hand-sewed a few seams that were coming apart, had new replica material sewn into the front seat, and made new door panels using 1/8" tempered hardboard for the backing. I'm very pleased with way it turned out. I used vinyl paint to get the main color close to correct. I still have to touch up the white, but it looks pretty decent! I also ran new front brake lines, drained and refilled the rear axle, and painted the dash, but I don't have any pics of that yet. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

Ed

Click on pics to enlarge...

This is the hood (obviously). I figured that since it was a large expanse of basically flat metal, I wanted it to be as nice as possible. I stripped it to bare metal. The underside is major ugly, but I'm working on it. The topside has 2 major dents, but is pretty nice once I got the paint off.

Here's the passenger side door panel. I covered it myself. The lower vinyl is new, the upper is original (cleaned and painted) and the cloth is replica.

The rear armrests are all new, both vinyl and cloth. I stripped and primed the metal backing with a rust-controlling paint, and used hot-melt glue to hold everything together.

The rear upper panels came out equally well.

I think the rear seatback picture show just how nicely everything is turning out…

Here's how the engine compartment looks now. I'm trying to get things ready so when the engine comes from the machine shop I can put it right in.

I have one side of the front end done. The frame looks good, and I put new wheel bearing, brake lines, hoses, and the previously-assembled unit carrying the shoes and the new wheel cylinders on. I still have the other side to do.

I had a little bit of time to spare, so began working on some of the exterior. I have the passenger door and rear fin just about perfectly smooth and ready for a good coat of primer/filler. So far all I've done is use spray cans just to keep my work areas from starting to rust again. I haven't tackled the right front fender yet, since I haven't yet been able to remove the molding there. I have to either tack the fender off or make a wrench with a special offset to let me get into the crevice where the nut is holding it on. That may be my next project.

Go HERE for progress as of 7-10-2004.