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What you say about (Know It All) Kanter (We Are Never Wrong) does not surprise me. It must be like dealing with an Englishman.

I've now taken the coupe seats to the upholsterer together with the light gray and dark blue broadcloth and dark blue vinyl. The cloth and vinyl from SMS are exact matches for the original colours (says SMS Fabrics). About a week to re-do them. It's fortunate that the old cloth etc is still on the front ones because he can do an exact copy of the style. The rear seats were re-done by the guy I got the car from, but the job was never completed. The brown is totally non-standard so has to go!

The various moths and rodents (including Ratty) have all had a holiday in the seats at some time. I had the car stored on a farm for a couple of years while I built my workshop under the house, and like with most farms there were rodents around.

Upholsterer will hand me back the bare springs and frames when he's taken the old coverings off, so I can clean and paint them. A bit of surface rust present on them now which I don't want to get any worse. Anyway, got to have even the unseen places looking like new on the car, I think I'm obsessive about that but the wife agrees.

The rear seats had been done in brown

Please show us a picture of your new door panels.

Will do Ross. I'll drag them out of their moth-proof packaging and post a pic, probably tomorrow.

Photos of one of the new door trims.







Pleased with the job SMS did, although I waited almos a year to get them

Pics of the original ones. It was handy to have them as patterns. There aren't a lot of 2465 Club Sedan pics with original interiors although I have found a couple after a lot of searching. Most cars have been re-done nonstandard.

The upholsterer has started on doing the seats and called to say I could pick up the seat frames and springs, so brought them home for painting, except for the ones in back of the front seat. Those were still in very good condition with the original black paint in place all over and no surface rust at all.

The same couldn't be said for the spring from the lower part of the front seat. It was rusty so needs a lot of sanding. It's getting painted with cold gal paint first after deoxidine treatment, then I'll hit it with black to maintain the original colour. Luckily the rust is localized and not too bad. No metal has to be replaced, just cleaned up and painted.

Some surface rust but not too bad . . . .




Good spray with gal paint then top coated with gloss black

Thanks for the photos--am stunned and pleased that SMS could make such nice panels without having to have your old ones. Very good to know for future use.

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I too am impressed. Is that real heat pressed in lines or did they just stitch them? Either way, it looks great. Hate to think of the cost though. Did you have to mortgage a relative? If so I hope it was one you weren't particularly fond of.

I made a lot of enquiries to maybe ten companies and found that it was only SMS that could do the exact same pattern and had the exact broadcloth and colours. Others said basically they didn't know the details (- pattern, cloth type and colour) and if I sent my old panels then MAYBE they could make copies. Hirsch does broadcloth but couldn't replicate the pattern (which is done with heat and pressure, and not stitched). Plus no-one had the patterns.

SMS said they knew exactly the size, cloth, colours and style for the 2465, and sent a colour print of exact same panels with the cloth samples. Assured me they had the 'patterns' to do mine. Quite a few Packardians said: 'You might die of old age before these arrive' but I went with it. Wanted the same as original.

Yep - very expensive. I could have non-standard panels made up for maybe half the cost but wanted the original style, as they're different from most other offerings. Have put so much into the car that it would be silly to compromise now. We had a surplus child and we sold him into slavery to raise the funds!

Today was "fit the windscreen day" - but not quite. The mobile windscreen guy arrived and we started fitting the Steele Rubber windscreen seal into the body. It soon was obvious that the rubber was too small, we needed around 2 inches more length on the run along the bottom.

Checked the part number and description on the plastic bag just in case, but it was OK as per the Invoice number and description. I had installed the rear windscreen a while ago and the Steele seal was just right, not too small or too big.

So what this means is that the front seal is poorly manufactured, it is just too small.

Installer has struck this problem a few times with other cars, and suggested we stretch the seal around the glass and leave it for a few days then take it off the screen and try it in the body again. It might stretch enough to allow us to 'struggle' it in. But it will prove difficult to do, being miles too small.

I have had a few problems with Steele Rubber products:

- Headlight gaskets were not even a close fit, the holes and rebated parts didn't match. So I made my own using sheet rubber I had.
- The gasket between rear of the hood and top of firewall is floppy because the rubber dowels don't line up with the holes. Big Kev also mentioned this in one of his posts a while ago.
- The steering column grommet is not same as my original, being much shorter so I have used the original which is in fair condition. I now have a $49 grommet that I don't need.


I have yet to fit the door rubbers and a few other bits and pieces, so here's hoping they are ok.

For the money you pay for these rubber bits I think they should be perfect in every way.

Monday is the day for the next attempt at fitting the screen. Wish me luck!