Can a leather gasket be stretched?

[kurtruk]

Ordered the leather gaskets to mount my windshield wiper drives on the cowl of my '48. Reputable Stude vendor, but maybe not so great on the customer service end. The gasket (or at least the hole in the gasket) needs to be oval shaped, not round. The shafts pass through the cowl at an angle, so the mounting surface is elongated. The gaskets I received are just round. They don't lay flat when tried. They just don't fit. I'm ASSuming all the vendors of these have the same supplier? So can these be stretched to fit? With water? I don't have experience working with leather, so I don't know it's properties.

KURTRUK
(read it backwards)

KURTRUK
(read it backwards)

[Tom Bredehoft]

I got a pair, removed the nut and the old gasket, stretched the leather to go over the shaft and screwed the nut down. The leather was very soft and flexible.

[img=left]http://www.alink.com/personal/tbredehoft/Bothcars3.jpg[/img=left]
Tom Bredehoft
'53 Commander Coupe
'55 President State Sedan (Under Construction) Project
'60 Lark VI (Sold, delivery in early Jan.)
'05 Legacy Ltd Wagon
All Indiana built cars

[rockne10]

The angle of the shaft to the sheetmetal is different. It was changed in the '53 model year. The gasket should still stretch to fit. If you do use anything on it, I would not use water; maybe a couple drops of Neatsfoot oil.