Thread: Everybody that is currently building a car...

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I thought I'd give this thread some love. It's nothing too exciting, but it's progress. We bought a New Port wiper kit earlier this year. It's a great kit and perfect for a car that does not have an electric sunroof . However, we had problems. The main problem being that the passenger side wiper comes out just past the middle of the windshield right where the sunroof motor wants to go as shown in the last pic. We cut up the case of that motor because we thought we could make that work, but it didn't as you can see and we ruined the motor. Then I bought a later model sunroof motor that did clear, but did not "bolt up" like the original one. I made brackets before realizing that the sunroof structure I was going to attach them to is aluminum and I'm not set up for it with my mig.

We then gave up and bought the SPW kit where the passenger side wiper comes out much further over to the right with a remote motor (which would allow the VW molded headliner to fit also). After receiving this kit we decided it was not quite as nice. Also after all we had gone through a universal kit was not someting we really wanted to get into. if we were going to drill new holes in the car and lose money on the New Port kit we may as well just use it and move the holes for the wipers over one inch to the right and cut the top wiper bar to clear the sunroof motor. I will add the pictures of the solution later on, but the first three show the problem.





Also, I had an anti street rod moment a while back where I came up with an idea to adapt a "windshield crank handle" to the plasctic sunroof control panel. The VW sunroof knob is a dial that you turn so when you look up all you will see is the chrome handle to give a more original look to it. Now I just need to finalize/troubleshoot the sunroof wiring so it actually works

On most of the 30's cars it's really easy to run out of room on the overhead and in the dash!!! Love the fat fenders, but the payoff of having such a narrow cowl area is the penalty. Anxious to see the "after" pictures of your dilemma!!!!

These other pictures I have aren't as great as I remembered and I don't have one with the sunroof motor in place, but you can tell where it goes. You can see on the inside picture how little it really moved over and the cut in the top piece. It made it a whole lot weaker so I welded a rod to the back, but it wouldn't clear very far over to the right. I hope it holds up okay for a while. I at least can't see it flexing as it moves back and forth. Looking back the solution is nothing amazing, but it sure took a while to come around to it.







space sure is a premium Dave. Between the wiring, fuse panel, heater, heater flex hose, cowl vent, and engine computer we're about out of space under the dash too. finding a place in the dash to mount the headlight and wiper switches where there was space behind to fit them was difficult too. Then there's the e brake handle too interfering passenger space, but it's all working out!

Well, looks like it all worked out just fine! On the Plymouth I'm finishing now I totally ran out of space, you can tell when you have something mounted correctly because it's the only place it could fit!!!!

Wow and I complain about lack of space under the dash in the 48 truck! Nice job getting all of that to fit! I'm still searching for an after market unit to fit the truck, that has an intermittant switch built in. Currently there are a few people on ebay selling 12 volt motors, but none with intermittant mode, which is needed around here with our misty but not quite rainy days. Then again mine won't be a daily driver, so I guess the regular setup would work! My space issues revolve around the cowl vent mechanism and the wiper blade transmission.

yea the knobs in the dash didn't go where I wanted, but I guess they just didn't want to be where I wanted them!

I was a little concerned with my patch job on those holes. I decided to only weld it up from the back to reduce the risk of warping if I had welded front and back and took a disc to the front. With just the skim coat of filler on the front it will work fine, right? other than looking bad in 30 years when the car is blasted again I'm satisfied at the moment.

I'm getting close to finishing my two year project. trying to attach pic.

Looks nice Tom! Tells us more about it!

TomJ, that looks great! How about a couple other views?

Originally Posted by 35fordcoupe

space sure is a premium Dave. Between the wiring, fuse panel, heater, heater flex hose, cowl vent, and engine computer we're about out of space under the dash too. finding a place in the dash to mount the headlight and wiper switches where there was space behind to fit them was difficult too. Then there's the e brake handle too interfering passenger space, but it's all working out!

Dang Bobby.. I'm searching for room for my 8 track...

That '28 even has an original steering wheel unique to '28.........looks good!

Thanks Guys. I tried to use as many eary '28 (ar) parts that I could find. Engine is '56 265, trans is '92 Camaro 700R4, rear is 2002 S10. I havn't started it up yet, still doing the electrical.

TomJ, that is just suhweet!! Nice job! Thanks for the pix fix...

Nice little RPU! I like the uniqueness of it. Haven't seen one like it around here. Nice job!

Ooo! I like that. Well done!