Over a period of several years, dating back to 1994, I have been involved with the restoration of several '39 Plymouth convertible coupes. The Plymouth convertible coupes of the '30's had bodies that were built by Briggs, the company also built many of the Ford open cars, therefore the DPCD cars share many body parts with the Fords.
The Ford and Plym open car window assemblies are very similar, stainless steel, and/or chrome window frames that are contained in a U shaped metal channel, with wool felt insulators.
Replacing the worn-out felt insulator in the window run channel became a very difficult task. After much research I finally found 1/8" x 3/4" Black Dense Wool Felt in the Restoration Specialties & Supply Catalog.
I cut the 3/4" felt into 3/8" wide strips, getting the 1/8" felt into the 1/16" window run channel proved to be a near impossible task. It was quite obvious that originally the 1/8' felt had been placed into an open channel which was then pressed closed utilizing a very complicated machine.
I tried everything I could think of to get the felt into the channel, to no avail, the felt had to be made thinner, but how, cutting/trimming was not the answer.
After many trial and errors I came up with a plan to press the felt into a thinner material. I used 3/16 x 3/4" flat steel, placed the felt on one piece of steel, then put the second piece on top. Using several 4" C clamps I compressed the assembly until the felt was compressed to it's thinnest. I left the felt in the press over night. Wearing gloves I quickly removed the felt from the press, before doing so I applied a very thin bead of GASGACINCH into the lower portion of the channel. ( I used Gasgacinch because it is a very thin fluid product)
The felt slipped right into the channel, and quickly, within a minute or so, expanded to it full size.
I considered trying to open the channel, gave that idea up because of the difficulty of crimping it closed.
During the course of the widow channel rebuild I noted that the rear portion of the window run channel had random 3/4" strips of the 1/8" felt attached via metal tabs to insulate the outer edges of the window frame from coming into contact with run channel.
I completed the restoration of my Plym in 2009, the window are powered, they have performed flawlessly since '09.
