I thought I posted this, this morning but I guess not. Brian, I ran into the same thing when I replaced the seals in the firewall on my '50, 3604. Mine came from the factory as a four speed and the hole in the floor is teardrop shaped as was the original column seal. The seal did not have a hole for the column shift. I ordered seals from three different vendors and they all were the round ones which will not fill the hole in the firewall. This again leads me to think that they are all getting their supplies from the same supplier, and I might add, don’t have a clue as to what their suppliers are making for them. It’s just one more example of a lack of interest to the small details. And as long as we keep buying their parts and not complaining they probably won’t ever change it. I have to say that the replacement seals that I did get were well made and were accurate reproductions, that is, if you have a column shifter.
Since the rubber covered steel plate on mine was still in very good shape and cleaned up like new, all I had to fab was the foam. The plate would be the hard part to duplicate and if yours is missing or rusted I don’t know what you could do. For the seal I ordered a sheet of material (sq. ft. of 3/8” foam) from McMaster Carr and cut my own on the band saw. I drilled the hole for the column with a hole saw. Now it fits and looks exactly like the original did.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
