One day while the wife and I were shopping at one of our local hardware stores (you know wich one's). We found a good supply of dresser knobs for a honey do project I needed to finnish.
At that same time I was trying to figure out what to do about my window crank handle knobs on my 41, my crank handles are not perfect, pitted chrome and dull looking. Plus the $35 or so to replace 3 knobs with factory looking replacements was hard for me to justify.
While looking at the knobs for our house project I ran across some porcelan knobs with floral paterns on them, they have a threaded steel insert in them! Very nice! And at less than $1.60 each I bought 4 of them!
Now how am I going to make these work?
If you have 41-46 cranks you look at the back side (door side) of the crank handle stud and you will see a counter sunk hole! This hole makes a perfect guide to drill a hole through. I used a 9/64th bit and drilled a hole center on this throught the knob stud, you will need to clamp the handle in a vice and use vise grips on the stud while your drilling to keep it from turning on you.
Once drilled through, look at the stud (passenger side) and you will see a shoulder, take a hack saw or a die grinder and cut the stud in two at the small taper of the stud. Clean the cut marks up with a small file or sand paper.
Most cabinet knobs come with their own mount screw, mine did however it was too long. It would not let the knob tighten down on the stud shoulder. A shorter screw will take care of this or you can cut the screw shorter to work, I cut 1/4 inch off the end of mine.
Once you have the proper length for the screw. Insert it through the new stud hole and tighten it onto the knob! A tip here, use locktight on the end of the knob screw to keep it from working loose.
Granted far from a factory look but it's cheap and once done looks very nice! Plus they turn and are easier to hold onto! Custom knobs on a budget! This will also work great for the windshield crank. And I'm quite sure you could do this to other years!
Just to get an idea check out the pics!
http://s127.photobucket.com/albums/p149/Rayolamp/Just passing on a smooth idea!
