These are both extremely useful. When we thought the brakes were good, we had a great deal of play in the brake pedal. This answer all of that. Thank you

my desoto before I sold it

as was already said, a FSM is a must, and it will cover almost any question you can think of including body parts r&r.

one thing i don't remember being mentioned ["oldtimers disease" plus CRS] is the condition of the wiring.
you don't want problems there. that could make for a very bad day.

The DeSoto is beautiful! I like how it is lowered. There is really nothing better than these old cars.


The wiring I believe has been updated. All the switches have been replaced with new or removed all together which is extremely frustrating. I have ordered and waiting to ship the manual with a wiring schematic to attempt to piece together the handing work of the previous owner. Unfortunately, the panel light switch, high beam switch and wipers switch have all been removed and no longer function. I can live with the interior light and the high beams. But the wipers are a must.

So, this brings on the next question, has the original steering column been replaced with something newer? Maybe the dimmer switch, and the wiper switch are on the column?

Is the turn signal switch part of the column and up high like the modern stuff? The original turn signal switch was an after thought and is a small box with the lever protruding from the box, and the box is clamped to the side of the column. If your car has a modern auto trans, it also probably has a modern steering column. That would actually be better for you. It is easier to go with an aftermarket 12 volt wire harness for a late 60s or early 70s with the modern motor/trans (and possibly a modertn steering column) then it would be to try to merge the 30s harness with the 70s drive train.

At this point I think I'd like to see pictures of the upper control arms, the steering box where the column meets it, the point the steering wheel is attached to the column, and possibly the dash showing the instrument cluster. I think everyone needs to know exactly what you have. Someone started swapping a bunch of stuff, but we don't know what and what has not been done. There are enough of us here that has dealt with this old stuff, we can probably identify what you have by looking at the pictures. Gene

Most of it appears to be original, if the brights are somewhere on the dash, I have yet to find where those are located. The high beam switch has been completely removed from the floor and there is a toggle switch where the wiper switch was located that is not connected to anything. There is a single motor for the wipers under the dash currently. I did not see a second one if there is supposed to be one. I began searching for wiper motors and they listed them as left and right implying that there should be two. The steering box? Where might this be located? I have attached is a picture of the steering from with the engine compartment. There is no power steering if the steering box is apart of this system.

Back to my brakes.......we are trying to order a new master cylinder online. It was discovered after bleeding the brakes and a chuck of debris came out revealing a leak in the master cylinder. My boyfriends suggestion was a dual reservoir master cylinder enabling the back brakes to continue to work if the front brakes go out. I do know the rear brake drums are not what came with the car, they appear to be 10” brake drums, possibly what came with the rear end that was put in from the 70s possibly. Will the original master cylinder work with the two different brake drums? Can a new dual chamber master cylinder be installed, if so are there compatible years or make/models that may work with our situation? Bearing in mind a future upgrade to front disc brakes.

Thanks in advance!!

OK, your steering column is original, as is your front suspension. Moving the upper shock mounting from the upper control arm to a bracket welded (or bolted) to the frame will improve the car's handling a lot. Several companies make those upper shock mount kits.

Are both wipers connected to that single wiper motor, or maybe one wiper is connected, or maybe neither wiper is connected. Does anything connect to the base of the wiper spindles that come through the cowl? Some of the original vacuum wipers were part of the wiper posts, so there was no linkage involved. Its also+ possible someone tried to get the driver side wiper to function with a more modern electric motor and couldn't figure out how to hook it up to the switch.
Originally the car would have had vacuum wipers, and there would have been a vacuum wiper for each side.

The brakes. A dual chamber master can probably be installed, but its been a long time since I've seen how they were setup. Some fabrication may be required to make a bracket to hold the master cylinder. There were a few years when the only way to change to a different master was to knock a hole all the way threw the original master and run a rod through it, then mount the new master behind the old one. I just don't remember the few years Mopar had that setup. The modern rear brakes probably came with the rear axle, the size of the drums, and the size of the wheel cylinder diameter may be very close to what was originally there, the modern axle and brakes are a huge improvement or what was originally there, as far as I'm concerned. Gene

I went ahead and bought a new original master cylinder, so hopefully this elevated our issues with brakes 🤞

I looked at the wipers and the wipers themself are both connected to the motor, however, the motor is not connected to anything. I was told a toggle switch was in place if the original wiper switch, but it is not connected either. I have bought the manual for the car and no where within the manual does it show the wiper motor lying within the wiring schematic of the car. Surely this was not an afterthought and came original.

i believe you won't find a wiring schematic for the wipers because they were vacuum units.
look close to see if there is an approximately 1/4" diameter barb on those wiper pods that a vacuum hose will fit on.
if so, those barbs need connected to a constant source of vacuum at the engine.

New Port makes wiper motors for it and assc

https://newportwipers.com/product-category/cars/dodge-and-plymouth/

I did look that the wiper motor and I didn’t see anything that jumped out at me as to where a vacuum line may go, however; there is a lot of crud caked on one side. It may be hiding out there. I will dog through and see if I find anything. I did look at the wiper site and Some YouTube videos on how to check if it’s functioning. So I’ll go that route first. Then decide if I need a new one later.