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.