SRT-8 Daytona Clone

Well I am a little disappointed. When I was in the planning stages of this project I consulted with a guy who does hot rods for a living and he gave me the name of an outfit that when the time came could provide me with tempered curved side glass to my patterns. Well because of new government testing requirements they are no longer able to provide this service for small customers. Seems that if  you now make any glass it must be DOT approved with a shatter test and the glass must break into specific size pieces. Needless to say it is now cost prohibitive to deal with small custom orders. He gave me the name of an outfit in Michigan that still does this but 2 pieces of side glass were going to cost upwards of $5,000.00. Maybe if this was an open checkbook deal I would bite the bullet and go for it but since I am on a budget that is out. The other option was the guys that did the "Fast and Furious" cars and the "Drive Angry" cars. They quoted me $1,300.00 for two pieces of laminated safety glass. The more I thought about it the more that had disaster written all over it. The window is long and there are considerable torquing and laminated glass is more than fine if it is immobilized but this glass is operable. So that leaves me with one option and that will have to be molded polycarbonate. While it is susceptible to scratching it can be easily trimmed and finished should it be made wrong and can more easily be replaced.


Anyway the first thing I needed to do was to make a accurate pattern of the glass with the arc in the panel. This is mainly because I needed to checkout how the arc would engage the "A" post area. The Lexan mock up window is flat stock so the arc disappears soon after the Lexan leaves the "B" post molding. What I did was to roll two pieces of .021 steel to the arc of rear window trim. I then I sandwiched 1/4" x 2" plywood strips between the two panels with contact cement.
Since Lexan is pretty flexible  I made a .060 steel channel to drop the glass into that will engage the carriers on the window regulator. The channel will keep the bottom of the glass straight.
The next step was to cut a piece of Lexan and  refine the shape a little.x3/4
The window regulator out of the 06 is two independent tracks with cross over cables to connect them. I bent some .035 steel 3/4"X 3/4" to connect these together as one unit. The stays were temporary. Once tied together I was able to align the tracks parallel with the stock rear window guide. I used a piece of square sheet metal to space them out. At the same time I centered the grab clamps with bottom of my widow channel and welded two 3/16ths steel tabs for them to grab on to. I temporarily tacked whole mess to the inner door shell.
I then hooked up to a battery and tested the regulator and made a bunch of adjustments.

Once I was somewhat satisfied I was in the ball park I made some permanent mounting points out of 1/8" steel strap. I made them in two pieces so that I could slide them in and out if I needed to make further adjustments.

Once all the permanent pieces were made I removed the 3/4 x 3/4 temporary braces. I still have a ways to go with this there is all kinds of stuff here to consider.

     

Here is a little video of it in operation.

Window regulator
This is a short clip showing the 06 window regulator adapted for use in the 68 door shell.
Posted by Steve Mirabelli on Sunday, June 1, 2014