I want to thank everyone for your assistance.

If you are going to bend it yourself, I would suggest getting the copper/nickel alloy tubing, which is easier to bend that steel. Also, since it will come coiled up, I would suggest buying a tubing straightening device.

I have a friend with a '37 Twelve Touring Limo that has been accepted to Pebble Beach this year. He is going through the car now getting it ready for Pebble. The cars steering column was chrome plated before he bought the car. I've looked but can't find that a chrome plated steering column was an option in '37.

Does anyone know if that is true or false?

I redid the steering wheel on my '32. Lots of cracks with were large areas where I needed to take it down to the steel rod. I used PC7 (a two part epoxy). I did 1/3 of the wheel at a time leaving a third of the wheel as a pattern. I sanded the steel when necessary to remove rust.

I found that when the 2 parts are mixed the material is stiff, but would slowly flow because gravity. My approach was to mix the material and wait an hour or hour or two (temperature dependent) and with disposable gloves I would apply to the wheel. I formed the indents for fingers following those on the "pattern". If it started to sag I reshape. I found that there is a point where the material could be shape using water moist hands to prevent it from sticking to fingers.

I left everything a little over size so it could be final sanded to correctness. Final shape of the finger grips were sanded. Second and third applications were made as necessary after sanding to fill voids or areas that needed it.

When completed it was primed and painted with a urethane enamel auto paint.

Where did you find the spring (inside or outside the car)? If I remember correctly it looks like the spring for the cowl on my '32. It pulls the bar up against the lever for the cowl, which has indents in it to allow positioning the cowl at various opening.

Try driving it with the air cleaner off. I had running problems on my '51 when running at higher speeds, which I eventually traced to the matting inside the air cleaner. Took me four months to figure it out after doing a lot of the things you mentioned in Post #1.

To stray just a little off topic, but I wanted to add a comment. My '51 had an electric pump in series with the mechanical one (which didn't work) when I purchased the car. The pump would start when the key was turned on which made it very convenient.

I decided to rewire the pump so that it had to be turned on with a switch. I hid the switch inside the driver's side ash tray such that it could be turned on or off by opening the ash tray.
I did this as an anti-thief measure figuring with the pump off, the car would start and run for a bit then stop. Leaving the thief & car part way out of a parking spot and wondering what to do with a car that would not start.

I'm glad that it worked. Before you install the new wires, make sure the spikes that penetrate the wire are cleaned up real good.

I bought some in September and looking at the charges on my card, it was either Tucson Packard or Merritt.

Wire versus plastic - availability and what was generally used is probably the answer. On the home sewing machine - I used my mother's machine on my first car. The material was naugahyde and I did not have piping. The machine did just fine. The down side was with the operator being a teenage male with no sewing experience. But it was a "First Car" a '49 Chevy that cost $89 in 1961.