Ford and Merc trim clip tech taught to me by Foxy Elder, East Coast custom guy that left us several years back. These are the side window clips.. I make the rear glass ones too but that's for another tech post. These clips aren't too hard to make but are very tedious. The clip making tools I use were modified 30 years ago and passed on to me to keep the tradition going. I'll make some for you if you need help but give it a try. I start with a sheet of polished 26 ga. stainless. I then cut it into 3/4 inch strips. I have 6" pieces of stock Ford and Merc side trim that I make a duct tape handle on and use as a hand held fixture to bend the stainless around. Foxy use to slide a piece of rubber fuel line over his. I take the stainless strip and fold a 90 degree end on it only about a 16th of an inch in a vise that was set up with a special spacer the thickness of the metal with a 16th inch deep drop. I lay the strip down on the bench and with a small hammer knock that 90 down to about a 45. I have another tool that knocks the sharp folded edge into a more rounded one. ( that's the piece of metal in the one pic with my old blood all over it, wear gloves!!) the piece slides in the bend then I smack the top of the edge with a hammer. The fold becomes rounded slightly. This was a piece of 1/8th in flat stock ground down with a grinder and rounded at the top edge. I then grab my piece of stock Merc or Ford trim with the duck tape handle and take my piece of 3/4 in stainless.. Put the folded lip on the bottom of the trim and pull it up and around the trim piece I'm holding. I then check to make sure the front of the stainless is square with the excess wrapped around back. I trim the excess off with a cut off wheel or tin snips. Maybe a 1/4 in. overhang that gets fine tuned later. I then squeeze the clip top to bottom with a pliers to tighten it up and continue to make adjustments until it fits the trim jig nice. The Mercs have a slight raised crown in the middle also. To do this I have a piece of steel ( actually the front of the vise) with a small groove cut out the profile of the needed crown that I put the clip in facing down and use the steel as sort of a dolly. I put the clip in the groove, put a rounded off chisel inside the clip and hit it once. The clip face bends down into the groove and the crown happens. After they fit the trim piece I put them in a vise upside down and even out the folded over edges with a cut off wheel on a die grinder then they get buffed. If they are too loose fitting they can be squeezed with pliers. If they are too tight set them face up on a table and hit them lightly with a rubber mallet to open them When the batch is done they get polished to take the tooling scratches out but since it's pre- polished stainless it doesn't take much Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Very nice! I may end up having to do something similar for the stainless clips on my front windshield. I appreciate the tech! Jeff
The Jalopy Journal
