Progress / motivation has been slow of late due to other commitments but I have managed to refit the glass to the rear body panels this-afternoon. The sliding glass sections and latches have been reused but the window track in which they run has been bought up to-date.

The original track was made of thin steel and lined with felt and the best thing that could be said about them, is they propagate moss exceptionally well. When I stripped the vehicle down, the tracks were so corroded and swollen, the windows wouldn’t move at all and didn’t look like they had been opened for many years.

The new tracks are aluminium with rubber channels from Rocky Mountain Spares in Canada.

 

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Original window latches with 50 years of grime
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A good soak in degreaser and a polish with some wire wool brought them up nicely. New rubber washers have been used
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New glass runners. Aluminium and rubber
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Original bottom window “tray” and body capping. The galvanised tray has 4 small protrusions that pass through the bodywork and allow water (collected in the tray) to run out.
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How the channel, tray and trim relate to each other
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The tray bolts to the bodywork but first some sealant is applied around the drain holes
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Tray bolted in place. The sealant will be tidied up once its has set
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The channels sections are held in place with small stainless steel screws. Once the bottom channel is in place, the glass can be fitted along with the top channel
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Then the end pieces are fitted. With all 4 sections of channel in position, the latches and runners can be installed.
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Runners are riveted to the top of the frame
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Stainless steel runners, manual pop rivet gun and 8nr pop rivets
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8 pops later…. and the runners are fitted
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Then both the latches are fitted
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It’s important that the front pane of glass is in the outside channel. If it were the other way round, water would stream in whilst driving in the rain. (it’ll stream in anyway… but good to reduce the amount a bit)

The same process was repeated for the drivers side.