Golden Lion Grrrages
1957 Chrysler 300C
Page 6

We have the power window motor project completed so I thought I would take a quick minute and wash the windows. How big of a job can that be? Well, it turns out there was black over-spray paint on most of the outside surfaces from a careless painter. The job grew 4X. Mineral spirits was needed to remove the over spray, alcohol needed to remove the mineral spirits, Windex to remove the alcohol. But the glass was still not clean. I remembered the hint to use a micro fiber cloth and dang to daisies that did the deep cleaning. I hope I remember micro fiber for the future.

Back to these doggone wheel covers and painting the red center disc. I tried the usual masking and was not satisfied with the result on the outer edge. With the taper of the wheelcover in that area, the masking tape must wrinkle and you don't get a crisp edge. So I started fresh and had the idea, why not get a red decal disc made? That would have a nice crisp edge. But right off the bat I noticed the disc surface is not flat and wouldn't that mean a decal would have to wrinkle on install? I got out my ancient mechanical drawing tools (1940 era) and cut paper samples. Sure enough, they wrinkle. The decal idea is out.

I go back to asking "How did the factory do it?" I don't have any wheel covers with original paint, so I'm guessing here. Perhaps the center hub was installed after paint, so no masking here. The outer edge had to have been masked -- if I had an original wheelcover I'd be interested in the crispness of the outer edge.

Moved on to getting the coating off of the white wall tires. Bleche white still has no effect. Someone suggested using a pressure washer. I did. It didn't do a thing. I worked with increasingly aggressive Scotch Brite. Progress was slow and not the best. It is unbelievable how difficult it is to get these new white walls clean! More to do.

I had a minute so I replace the power steering return hose. Someone had installed heater hose. That won't hold up to the temperature and pressure of power steering oil. You can easily tell the wrong hose, it sweats and becomes soft. Power steering fluid is flammable and the hoses are not far from hot exhaust manifolds. Use the correct hose such as NAPA 7-1207.

The package shelf arrived from Quirey. At first I thought it was too wide. The trick is to remove both the right and left interior quarter panels. Even though they look like they don't take up much space, they do. Arc the package shelf at the center and you can install the edges under the rear window gasket. This car also had the rear speaker and rear window defog option. I installed the shelf and located the cutouts from below for best alignment. By the way, I hear SMS also makes rear package shelves, and they will make them to a custom width if need be.
I don't know what it is about interior work, it always take two or three times longer that I expect.

The defogger is unique to 57 (maybe 58 & 59). Notice how it sits down from the mounting plate and has a "chimney". After 1960, the motor is attached right to the mounting plate. This means you can't swap in a newer (and more common) defog. A previous owner had removed this so he could fit the rear AC ducts (since removed) and a new mounting plate had to be made, repairs made to the plastic duct. This little thing took much more work than anticipated.

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