Thread: 32 Ford Roadster Windshield Finger Pulls

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Don and all,

First of all, I DO NOT have faith in anything that Brookville says or makes. They have been proven wrong too many times during my '31 build to the point that I wont talk to them. They have literally thrown me off their display at NSRA York My car was improperly assembled, dimensionally incorrect in many places and built out of the wrong very soft draw quality steel. You can read my review on another site.

But with that said, Brookville (as do all others) purchase their OEM style stancions from Lebarron-Bonney or Mac's. They were made in Taiwan, but are probably made in China now. There is no lip. They simply repackage them exactly like NAPA does with Standard electrical parts.

Sorry - any mention of Brookville gets me going

C9, I do like the LEXAN wind wings - much nicer then the usual oversized glass versions, especially on an A. Something to consider next spring.

Originally Posted by IC2

First of all, I DO NOT have faith in anything that Brookville says or makes. They have been proven wrong too many times during my '31 build

A side note on Brookville business practices ...

I was at the Brookville booth @ the NSRA Nationals in Louisville this year ( 2007 ) and Ray ... the owner of Brookville ... was making a sales pitch to a fellow about the 32 Ford 3W body. He said that a fellow who had a deposit down ( 5 grand ) was #141 on the waiting list had gotten Cancer, had 6 months to live and Brookville had just gave him his deposit back ... I was impressed ... I thought that was real good of them

Then Ray offered the new guy ... the #141 slot ... if he put down a 5 grand deposit that day

I think that stinks to high heaven ... all the deposits after #141 should have moved up one spot and the new guy start at the rear of the line IMHO.

I know I would be very UPSET ... if I was waiting for a 32 3W from Brookville and they moved a new buyer up ahead of my deposit.

Thankfully ... I have a original 32 Ford roadster and a original 32 Ford 3W coupe ... and do not NEED ANY of Brookvilles products.

Originally Posted by Deuce

A side note on Brookville business practices ...
Thankfully ... I have a original 32 Ford roadster and a original 32 Ford 3W coupe ... and do not NEED ANY of Brookvilles products.

I have a Brookville '32 grille shell for my '31. With the amount of time that I have in repairs, I could have bought an OEM off EBAY. When I approached Ray Golohan about it at York 2-3 years ago and explained what my problems were, he said that they had been addressed and showed me a pristine copy. My (lucky) buddy then bought it for his car project. Last fall I stopped by Dick Spadaro's shop and asked if they had one of the better versions. The two that they had just gotten into stock were even WORSE then mine.

The problems that I had are sunken areas on both sides of the top(1/4"), .060 ridges top to bottom on both sides, the upper right detail ridge was off by over 3/8" and to make things even worse, the insert stuck out by a 1/2". Quality stuff NOT!! And yes, I do understand that there are tolerances - but those were beyond any reasonable assumptions as well as almost everything else on the car I bought. Golohan and I have had several 'discussions' but never more.

C9X,
Sometimes you win one in spite of stupidity! I bought a 2'x3' sheet of acrylic because it is much cheaper than lexan and I thought I could buff out any imperfections. I don't have access to a band saw so I took the acrylic to the glass shop that made a minor problem with my windshield and to my amazement the shop guy there first cut out the windwings from the acrylic and when he found that sanding the edges made chips he supplied lexan copies for the same price quoted to saw the acrylic. So we have two lessons here. First, acrylic looks clear and nice but the edges can't be beveled or smoothed over easily without chipping. Apparently the lexan is much harder than the acrylic. Second, sometimes you get lucky and find a helpful person! I am not proud of the holes I drilled in the stanchions but it is one of those cases where it is not very easy to look at both sides of the car at the same time and from the front they are at least six feet away. The stainless is tough. I put the stanchions in a vise holder on a drill press at John York's Cobra shop (nearby) and used a brand new bit, but after four holes the bit is useless! John York is a good guy to know, he turns out about 3 or 4 turnkey Cobras a year and does just about all the assembly himself so he is my closest car guru and I try to stay on his good side! Still without this Forum and a lot of help from some of you I would really be up a creek without a torque wrench!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Good on ya.

Lexan is far better than Acrylic or Plexi.

Years ago I worked at Oxnard airport and the plexi windshields were always scratched to hell and gone.

Lexan is the material used to make jet fighter canopies.

Reputed to be able to have bullets bounce off, but that's probably at an angle.

I oughta take the 1/8" quarter window prototypes and pop em with a few different calibers next time we go shooting.

Do you know if Lexan can be heated and bent at about a 30 to 45 degree angle. The reason I ask is I have seen wind wings made of a plastic material that were bolted to the windshield posts in the same location that the repo wind wing brackets bolt to. It looked like a very clean instalation to me, and I would imagine it would work as well, as using the stock style windwing brackets.
HemiDeuce

Originally Posted by HemiDeuce

Do you know if Lexan can be heated and bent at about a 30 to 45 degree angle. The reason I ask is I have seen wind wings made of a plastic material that were bolted to the windshield posts in the same location that the repo wind wing brackets bolt to. It looked like a very clean instalation to me, and I would imagine it would work as well, as using the stock style windwing brackets.
HemiDeuce

Yes.

If I remember right, 200 degrees F in the oven will get the Lexan to where it's bendable.

Time is part of the equation too.
Too long and you'll have it sagging when you take it out of the oven.

Little brother did the V-bend on his Henry J drag race car's windshield.
Seem's like he used a propane torch sparingly and used the car's body as a mold.


Do some experimenting with scrap pieces before you try to bend the windwings proper.

Plexiglass in a trade name for acrilic plastic. Lexan is the trade name for polycarbonate plastic. Lexan is a much better product in most applications. Plexiglass cracks easily and will craze over time. Lexan can be bent in a metal brake if thin enough and can be formed with heat. In heavy thicknesses it is considered bulletproof.

C9x Here is the result of a liesurely ten hour day with three trips to ACE hardware and two trips to Home Depot following several half days of ordering stuff from Bratton's Model A supply house. I am sorry that I was so pleased that I got it done that I forgot to wipe it off! The height can be adjusted after I get a top on. I used half of the pads from the rubberized cloth that came with the clamp kit and on the inside used the thinner of the rubber pads that were supposed to be reproduction rubber. The Brookville stanchions seem to be tapered more from front to back than the stock stanchions which are more rectangular in cross section so the studs that came with the clamp kit were too short and I had to make my own studs from 5/16" bolts with the heads cut off and threaded for the 5/16" NF24 thread of the clamps. Since the cross section of the stanchions is wedge shaped I used wedge shaped pieces of 3/8" neoprene fuel hose to cover the threads of the studs. It's not perfect but it passes the ten foot inspection for me. I still need to trim the rubber strip from the top of the windshield frame.

Bob, (I can help Bob???) all the furor over the swing-in windshield made me worry over it for several days and today I decided to just mock up the windshield just to see where the position for the "lip" should be and to my amazement the new rubber makes it pretty tight. In particular the side rubber binds pretty good at the top three inches of the windshield so I think anything less than a 50 mph collision with a Canadian Goose will resist moving the windshield in just based on the side rubber and the rubber along the bottom edge. The '29 stanchions have a 5/8" flat rubber strip which I glued into the groove with "GOOP" contact cement. I also ordered the 3/4" strip that was used on the '30-'31 roadsters which has a T-shape but since there is no groove for the T I went with the '29 rubber. I have been pleased to be able to buy a lot of '29 reproduction parts from Bratton's Antique Auto Parts in nearby Mount Airy Md and for my location I often receive shipment in one or two days. Their phone number is 800-255-1929 (toll free!) and the rubber strip for the '29 stanchions is part No. 28620 for only $3.75 plus shipping. The restorers say to paint the edge of the windwings black but I kind of like the way the edges "glow" a little bit. Bob why are you buying '29 stanchions? Building for yourself or a customer?

Despite the fact that this thread was originally about finger pulls and even though I bought the finger pulls, my recent adventures with drilling a round piece and the relatively tight fit of the windshield rubber lead me to expect that I never plan to swing the windshield out and so will not need the finger pulls!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

Bob why are you buying '29 stanchions? Building for yourself or a customer?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Time will tell that story Don. Right now I'll just blame kenny d. for bringing them into my life.

Like the progress you're making there, a picture of what you did on the side rubber you described would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Looks good Don.

One thing I meant to point out with the WW clamps is to substitute stainless allen bolts for the stock slot head screws on the clamps proper.

You can crank em up a bit tighter and no chances of a screwdriver slipping and gouging the Lexan.

From the discussion of Brookeville on here, it sounds like they've hired Kyle Bond (Gibbon) as a quality control consultant.

Bob, here is a picture of the side rubber with the windshield open a crack. I just scratched up the inside of the channel with the point of a pair of scissors, filled the channel with "GOOP" and slid in the reproductions '29 rubber. You can be sloppy with the GOOP since when it dries/cures you can peel off the excess with a little rubbing. Now that it is in there the main seal seems to be at the top three inches of the side and the rubber along the bottom edge wedges in pretty tight.

C9X, you always have a better way! I will look for the allen head screws, thanks!

Henry Rifle, I have checked out the original Ford Service Bulletins and pictures of restored '29s and I do not see any lip at all. Apparently the rubber was supposed to be enough to seal it up, but the fact that the '30-'31 roadsters used wider side rubber with a T-channel tells us there may have been problems with the '28-'29 set up. I am going to keep it this way until/unless I have problems with it.

Don Shillady
Retired SCientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

From the discussion of Brookeville on here, it sounds like they've hired Kyle Bond (Gibbon) as a quality control consultant.

Jack,
IMO a Brookville may be OK for a professional builder with good fab and body prep skills but they are not for the weak in patience and thin of wallet. My patience is about gone - I even spouted a few words yesterday I didn't know that were in my vocabulary

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

C9X, you always have a better way! I will look for the allen head screws, thanks!


Don Shillady
Retired SCientist/teen rodder

That is, of course, after doing it the hard way . . . twice....

Anyway, if the WW bolts are 1/4-20 I have quite a few.
Give me the length and I'll send some over if you PM me your address.