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Started the process today of stripping down the door jams and prepping the insides of the door for primer and paint. Most of the spray in insulation in the door is flaking off and was clogging the drains in the bottom of the door. So I need to scrap out as much of that old insulation as possible from all the door before painting. Then I need to vacuum out the door cavities to remove all the debris. A couple of my doors had the beginning of pin hole rust at the bottom of the door skin. This is from the clogged drains. The actual bottom of the door structures are solid.

I used 2" rolok discs on a right angled die grinder to get into all channels where the weather stripping was. This made short work of removing all the old glue and surface rust. Need to pick up some more discs tomorrow to finish the other doors.

I backed the car out of the garage to clean underneath it. There was enough dirt under the car to fill a 5 gal bucket. I guess all the vibration from the pneumatic hammer shook it all loose from the underside of the car.

Also I am seeping tranny fluid from around the rear of the pan, so I need to get back under there and tighten the pan bolts up a little more.

I let the car run for about 20 mins to warm it up thououghly as it had been a couple of weeks since the car was run last. The accelerator pedal feels really good now that it firmly bolted to a new solid floor. Just need to replace the rod gasket.

Curious about the carpets in the car. Do they stop just short of the door sills? Or do does the edge of the carpet go under the door sill?

My car originally only had carpets in the rear, and a rubber mat in the front.

Also what have people used to replace the insulation in the roof? Dynamat is a obvious choice, but I think that is more for noise and vibration dampening, I really want something for heat insulation, but not something to heavy that I have to worry is going to fall down when the hot sun here bakes the roof.

Would foil backed jute be the closest replacement to what was originally up there?

Carpet went under the sills on my 54 Patrician.

I suspect the foil back would work better than what was there originally. Believe several have mentioned using the stuff from home centers although don't remember the jute part of it. Ones I took apart -all non AC cars- had that embossed tar paper stuff about 1/8 thick and was more a noise or drumming dampener than insulation. Don't know if there was anything special done on AC cars. As I recall a few of the bows come very close to roof so thickness may also be an issue in spots.

Roof insulation:
Check some modern cars. 89 Caprice sedan uses a FULL PIECE styrafoam headliner. Styraphome about 3/32" thick. I can measure it for verification on request.

The 'fabric' is extremely thinn maube only .006" thick and cemented someway to the styraphome. There is NO cross bow supports whatsoever.

Maybe a modern stationwagon or Cadillac etc large car headliner could be cut to fit. OR just use the styraphome over the cross braces.

NOTE: AS PER FACTORY service maual, the caprice headliner is R&R'ed by carefully folding into a tube like form and removed thru the rite front door. I've done it that way myself.

So a modern headliner as such mite be the answer.

Tar paper.

I forgot to mention that the 89 Caprice also had thick very stiff tar 'paper' squares cemented to the roof. About 5 of them. Since there are wide spaces between them i doubt that they served any heat/cold insulation purpose.

Thanks guys for the suggestions.

Keith the tar paper spaced out is used for vibration dampening. It helps to reduce road noise a bit as well.

The carpet on my 400 went under the sills. Dwight H. disputes this and says his Carib didn't.

My door sills have a raised U-shaped channel "bump" on the inside edge. Underneath that bump there was a "rod" of fiber/wood based material I supposed which was used as a spacer. On carpet applications was this still used, or did the binding on the carpet fit into the channel?

The only remnants of my front mat covering were a two screws on each side that had cup washers on them. Not sure if these were factory or not, but I suppose they were used to hold the rubber mat in place.

Speaking to Ross, he told me that the carpets on '54 (Clippers anyway) did not extend under the sill in any of the many original cars he has worked on. They just butted right up against it. He also believes that carpets have been shipped in the trunk and installed by the receiving dealer to avoid getting soiled in transport. Hence why the seats do not have to be removed to install/remove the carpet.