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Howard, do you have the drawings you made to make your molds? or maybe the 3D models? We have a 3D printer at work and I have the software to take 3D model and translate it into a readable file type for the machine to read.

It is an SLA printer that we have a couple materials I would need to find the specs on.

there is also a guy in Sewickley PA (down the street from me) that has a business of reproducing trim parts for the collector car market.

No drawings. My silicone molds are directly cast from a damaged original that I glued back together with epoxy and filled any left over cracks and defects with Bondo. After several mold making sessions it is now somewhat the worse for wear again.

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Seeing a factory air dash with the vents still in it and hanging upside-down is precisely what was so shocking!!!! Probably half of the vents I have known of over all these years that were damaged got that way because they either fell out of a dash in storage... or were dropped. Easiest way I can think of to demolish these brittle and very complicated parts.

I have tried to save as many of these A/C vents I have found over the years. But I continue to see them destroyed.

And as someone who has designed and actually made automotive items on an OEM level, I certainly would not want to try repopping these very complicated vents. I knew someone who thought they could repop the vent and they made a set that kinda-sorta looked okay... until the first time they sat in the sun at a car show. Ended up looking like macaroni and bacon.

I take my hat off to anyone who could actually make these components... have them workable, proper weight, looking appropriate, be durable and not hock their house to do it.

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Well HH56... if you have some of the parts you made that are not in the best shape, and if your willing to send them over to me, I can reach out to this guy:

hv3dworks.com/

To see if I could get a 3D scan. With a 3D scan of these parts I could easily get them 3D printed at work out of the couple materials we have here, or see if he could do them in metal.

I could probably come up with one of my better rejects. It would be good for something that is not a calamity if lost or damaged so would not be a big deal when it gets examined and then dropped on the floor when someone faints after the guy mentions the price. For the scan it is still a copy of a repaired original and I would not want to see it used to make a dimensional drawing. For an actual scan it would be so much better If you have an original from one of your cars so he can see the crispness and get a scan with all the correct dimensions.

IMO no matter what method makes the repro a vent is going to need to be replaced in its entirety. Make a good copy and you can replace only one side but unless both parts of the repro vent are made with exact repros of the original steel dies and material there is going to be something in the repro that will not match well with an original mating half. A modern compound may not have the same expansion properties so might not fit when trying to replace just one part and keep an original other piece.

Leeedy mentioned he thinks a repro needed the original weight and details. To me the weight and hidden detail is not as big an issue as is having the visible part have almost a perfect correct look and be made out of a material with a high temperature deforming point. The high temp epoxy I was last experimenting with has a heat deform up to 350 degrees if a post cure is done. 250 without the post cure but even the lesser temp should be adequate. I have not measured but expect the dash would not get that close to 250 or else the pad or other things in the car would have serious issues. The too short of working time or pot life of the last plastic compound I found is rated at 250 as well.

Actually, I think a lighter opening part and some mostly hidden improvements would be better. The originals are held in the open position by friction from a pair of felt pads pushing against the sides of the bottom part. The pads wear or maybe shrink and first thing you know, you are driving down the road and as some small disturbance occurs you watch the lid drop closed. There is more than one vent out there that is helped stay in the upright position by a piece of cardboard stuck down the side or shoved under one of the louver slots. There could also be something done with the hinge portion to maybe use a smaller screw with a thru hole that would leave more of the plastic material in place for added strength.

The exact size felt Packard used for the friction hold does not seem to be easily found so to replace that you need to cobble something together out of a modern equivalent to approximate the thickness and size. That then needs to be glued into the slot. IMO, it would be advantageous to modernize that part with a lighter lid and maybe something like a spring pushing against friction material to keep a more even pressure. One of my versions has a provision for that spring loaded approach. The extra part for the spring is not easily seen when the vent is open. I have also toyed with a long 2-56 or 4-40 stainless steel allen head screw instead of the 6-32 brass stud Packard used as a hinge pin. Either would need a smaller thru hole which would leave almost double the amount of plastic for strength. An Allen screw would only need the larger hole a short distance thru thicker material for the screw head clearance.

Wouldn't a pair of wave washers do the trick of adding friction? My 1965 Imperial LeBaron also has pop-up air outlets on the dash (and on the rear shelf as it has dual A/C) and they work well with those.

Maybe but the lid is fairly heavy and there is not much room or surface area for them to press against so the wave washers would need to be small. For a 6-32 diameter pin I think the washer diameter will be larger than the lid surface and would stick out. If washers were cut down they might not have much strength. I would also think after a few open and close cycles the plastic would wear so the washers loose whatever additional friction they might provide.

So this past weekend I was able to make it over to the parents place to get some car work done. The stuff I got done to the Patrician was a little small, but every little bit helps.

I got the passenger side door trim off (mostly anyway) and I started to dig deeper into the body. I sanded off the paint in areas that looked a little troublesome before and the only major issue I found was the passenger side rocker. I knew it was bad, I didnt know how bad it was... The rocker is not only perforated down the entire length, but also greatly dented... Needless to say it would be a lot quicker to just get a new rocker for it. I taked to Ross at speedwell garage and he turned me on to C2C fabrications for that. Ill have to see what all they offer but I am hopeful.

I also got the rear end up on jacks to start cleaning the underside and figure out what I am going to do there. The entire underside is undercoated and in most areas is still adhering very well. So I am going to POR the frame and leave the attached undercoating there and chip away at the stuff that is flaking off. The areas that are bare are just going to get spot painted.

Now that I am caught up on house work and hope to have the truck up and running soon I hope to get more time to work on the parts for the Patrician I have out here in Pittsburgh.

So I checked on C2C fabrication website and they dont have the rocker panel on there. I tried reaching out to them on here but did not get a response. So I will try through their website. I did find this though:

ebay.com/itm/270763383517

This week I got some stuff done. I was able to disassemble the dash completely that was in the car as well as the dash that will go back into the car. The pink dash was also an A/C dash (I was told it was from a 400) that I had to drill the holes for the power lock switches. So next I have to disassemble the column for paint and inspection. Would like to sand and paint all the interior stuff at once.

I attempted to clean the door cards with a steamer. I did get some stuff out, but I am not to sure I like the results. I will try again when they dry.

I also dissected the harness to replace the yellow ignition wire. It was burnt from the ignition switch to the crimp, from the crimp to the fuse box. So it got hot enough to burn the insulation off the entire wire! scary stuff. However according to the service manual there are only to be 3 wires in the ignition wire circuit crimp, but I have four... The fourth wire also goes into the engine bay, I am not to sure what it was used for but I kept it.

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If your car has pushbutton shift there is a wire between the ballast resistor yellow wire going over to the PB relays to provide part of the PB power. That wire is not shown on the main diagram but is in the PB diagram -- yellow on early built cars, white on later ones. If a problem develops in the PB fingers or one of the relays which results in a direct short, that connecting wire or the yellow wire coming from the ign switch can burn. A very late issued service bulletin added a fuse over at the PB relays to protect the two wires but if that was never done a problem with the PB system could explain the burn.