My 1929 Plymouth Model U

Chet's Old Plymouths

          Current Work

Rear Frame & Window Assembly

With the sill plates and right & left hinge pillars in place I moved on to the rear wood framing.

The good news in this ongoing effort is that I was able to save some of the surviving wood members.  Pictured on the left is the center support which was originally made to hug the metal skin.  This wood member survived in excellent shape.   Also some of the upper window framing and most of the top cross member survived. 

Having this center piece in excellent original condition set the dimensional positioning for the center support frame and lower rear window assembly.

The support members on the left and right of the center were originally 3/4 by 2.5" board set in at a 10 degree angle from square to support the frame and also the rear seat back.

Creating the cross member support was a three step process:

  1. I created a rough template out of cardboard.
  2. From this cardboard template I created a wood member out of soft pine.   I then fitted this pine template into the car and sanded and adjusted the soft pine template wood to fit perfectly into the rear metal skin of the car.
  3. I used the fitted wood template to create two pieces of hardwood to make up the 1.5 inch thick center support frame member.

All wood pieces were assembled into the car to ensure everything fit properly.

All wood pieces were stained prior to assembly. 

The center cross members will be glued together once they are installed into the car. 

The reason for this is to allow for a closer fit to the metal skin and easer assembly.

Below are the last stages.  The picture on the left showing the assembly of the cross member and the picture on the right showing the completed lower rear window frame. 

The next step is the reconstruction of the upper rear window frame and top cross member.