It was late in 2021 that we decided to get back into this car. It has been in the corner of the garage since 1996. I bought the car from Al Wallace of Greenville, RI. He bought it in 1992 from Edward Jasinski of California. After all these years of storage, we don't know what we have until we dig into it.

Here is the introductory video from September of 2021.

The body is very solid except for the areas just forward of the rear wheel wells. Perhaps the quarter window drains plugged. The front fenders, the rear quarters, the trunk floor and the trunk lip are solid as a rock. At the outset, I am having trouble with something electrical -- when I connect the battery cable to the post, I get a spark. After checking many things, we discover a cigar lighter is stuck down and causing the draw. Who would have thought?

This car has the optional 7 button radio ("Golden Touch Tuner") with rear seat speaker (option code 428). It is interesting to note the location of the manual antenna. It is on the driver side fender, forward of the rear view mirror. When the car left the assembly line, things like the wheel covers, manual antennas, and passenger side rear view mirrors were shipped in the trunk for the dealer to install. Although templates for the antenna and mirrors were provided, after the dealer technician installed a few they felt then knew what to do and forgot about templates. It is normal when comparing cars to see the locations of antennas and mirrors to be quite different but normally manual antennas for the radio are found on the passenger side fender.

There is a problem with the horns. Not only is there is broken wire in the steering column, the wheel on the steering shaft switch and the turn signal cancel switch is a problem. See that video here.

The license plate lamp wasn't working. You'd think that would be a simple fix. Access to the housing is restricted until you realize the trunk latch comes off and provides the entry you need. Still, these old housings aren't great for ground and I ended up running a jumper ground wire from the socket to the body. See that video here.



The map light is out. I removed the lens to find the socket had come loose from the light housing and I couldn't access the lamp. Removal of the heater push buttons gave the access. I found the lamp was bad, a new one is installed. If I can't find a flatter lens, I'll possibly make one out of Lexan. See the video here.

Someone a long time ago taped something to the dash by the headlight switch. The tape residue was still there. It was stubborn. Scratch Out did a great job on the area.

I discover damaged wiring as I try to figure out why there is no driver side rear turn signal. In several places I find wiring chaffed through to bare copper. I found this problem in the trunk loom and in the wire bundle near the parking brake. If you look at the wiring diagram on a 1960 Chrysler, you'll see that very few things are fused. While the chafe in the trunk was easy to find, the section by the parking brake is well hidden and not likely to be noticed. I plan to get with the electrical wizards and figure out how to add protection to these old electrical wiring looms. Left alone, these old wires might burn you to the ground one day. It took a while to figure out why the driver rear turn signal wasn't working. Getting juice to the rear lights isn't as straight forward as you might think -- from the battery it runs to the headlight switch, then to the brake light switch on the master cylinder, then to the turn signal switch, then to the rear lights. By disconnecting the system at the connector by the parking brake and feeding various wires with a jumper, I found that everything in the rear works, bare wires and all. That means the problem with no driver rear turn signal must be in the turn signal switch. Oh joy. Replacing a turn signal switch on these AstraDome cars is a tough job. But first I deal with the headlight switch which has proven to be bad. The adventure with the wiring is here.

The headlight switch went off to Jeff Carter for rebuild. When it came back, the electrolum panels and the instrument panel lights were once again working.
Returning to the turn signal switch, I was able to disconnect the switch from its loom and install a known good switch into the wiring. When I did that, I finally had the driver side rear tail light blinking. The old switch had to come out, the new one installed and you can see it here. Looking at the wires on the old turn signal switch, it is clear something caused these wires to get hot. I'd guess one of those bare spots in the loom found ground and since this system has no fuse, a whole lot of amps made a whole lot of heat for a while.

About this time in the project I was asked about the drain tubes that appear on some 1960 Chrysler products. After a quick survey of cars, it turns out that most Chryslers did not receive drain tubes and there is no correlation to build dates. That is, we found early build and late build cars with them as well early and late build cars without them. You can watch the drain tube video here.

With winter approaching, it was time to move the car from the storage garage to the heated workshop. I had a local service flatbed it the short distance to the shop where the first thing on the agenda would be a bath. The second thing was to discover I had locked my keys in the trunk. The third thing was to find my spare keys and unlock the trunk. The fourth thing was to dry the trunk because I had forgotten to install the missing drain tube. If I ever have a car story that doesn't involve keys, good bet it isn't me.

For no particular reason I started in on the passenger side door. The handle, the latch, the lock, everything was stiff. I removed the door panel and saw the problem -- petrified grease. For better access, I removed the outer door handle and the latch mechanism and chiseled the old grease off of these pieces. With new lube everything works smoothly. Reassembly was a bear, especially since everything was greased and slippery. Getting the latch mechanism to re-attach to the rod wasn't happening until I removed the rear window channel. Then things clicked first try. Somethings you can take apart but can't put together without taking more things apart.

The door itself is rock solid and the door panel cleaned up reasonably well. On the back side I could read the manufacturer and the date: American Auto Felt, April 6 1960. The vapor barrier was missing and the panel missing most of the attaching clips, but this is an easy fix.

With the passenger door buttoned up I moved to the rear seat area. The seats are supposed to be retained by sheet metal screws; the bottom should have one and the top should have two. They were all missing and the bottom lifted out too easily. I found out why -- the retainer had broken off of the seat frame. My guess is a previous owner forced it out, perhaps not realizing there was catch teeth in the floor. I was able to reattach the retainer and moved on to cleaning the seats. The rear upper seats are sun baked and the lowers are stained but they are easy enough to swap out so for the time being I will clean and reinstall.

With the seats out I can remove the interior panel. Again, no vapor barrier but there is no corrosion in the door and there is a replacement motor for the window. I used dry lube on the sliders, cut a new barrier, cleaned the panel and reinstalled. Since I was in the area I started to polish the rear window chrome. I like to do these while in place since installation can be a wrestle. The passenger side cleaned well with Turtle Wax chrome polish and a tooth brush but the rust on the driver side was heavy enough that the molding had to come out. On the work bench with chrome polish and a stiff bristle brass brush, the driver side molding came out in good shape. For the video of this work, click here.

Since I was working in the back seat area polishing and cleaning chrome, I decided to work on the center console. The top pieces on the rear console arm rest didn't fit right and the hinge was loose. I disassembled it for cleaning and discovered the console cover hinge had been installed backwards and a mounting bracket was missing. You can watch a video of this here. I have spare console parts so I was able to correct things and learned a trick -- there is a cutout in the passenger side of the rear console housing which provides access for reassembly. Things always make sense once I learn the tricks. For more detail on the console, click here. The console trim and brightwork is original and although scratched from 61 years of use, cleaned up well enough to use as it is. The power window switches are tight and work well. Before moving on, the ash trays deserve a bit of work. These are dirty and rusty but I've seen much worse. I give them a quick ride in the grit blaster and then paint light coats of reflective aluminum. They are presentable and we move on.

Before

After grit blast

After paint

The drivers door has yet to receive attention. I removed the panel to find no vapor barrier (no surprise) and that the power window motor had received extra bracing. This is a good thing and should be added to anything with power window motors 1960 though 1964. The original design had the window motor suspended from the transmission. After years of door slams, the transmission fatigues, fails, and the motor falls inside the door. A brace is a great solution to the problem. The window lift and door latch mechanisms were lubed, the door handle removed and lubed, a vapor barrier installed and the panel reassembled. A nice thing about this car; both front door locks are keyed alike and match the ignition lock. You can watch the video about the front door here.

Before cleaning

After cleaning

The tach had some sort of debris on the face. I was able to remove it with a razor blade and glass cleaner. The console bright work and the instrument panel also cleaned up nicely with chrome polish and wax.

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