Hot Rods Sometimes you just have to find a reason to drive’em

I drive mine all winter as long as they’re not apart for maintenance or upgrades AND there’s no snow.

 

Yes, the "new"rear window is from a 37 Ford.
My computer was giving me fits earlier, and the few pictures I have are on that computer. I'm using my wife's lap top right now.
The 37 Ford split window fit in there like it was made for the car. The window frame on my coupe was rotted away real bad, and the window was starting to fall out, so I had to do something. My coupe is a business coupe, so it had the flat glass. Why Plymouth chose to install a flat rear window on the graciously curved body I will never understand.
Basically, I cut the body just around the the outside edge on the smooth curved edge to eliminate all the steps Plymouth added to be able to put the flat glass in the body. The Ford window frame came with about 4" of flat metal all around the actual glass mount area. That extra 4" proved to be pretty tight at the top and the bottom and on the two bottom corners.. The top was just above the rotted area on my roof. A couple of places the weld blew through the rusted thin roof panel, but I was able to fill the holes. The Ford glass is about 2" taller then the Plymouth glass was, I split the difference between the top and bottom, though there wasn't a lot of choice in the matter. I did have about 3/4" extra to shift side to side so I could visually square the center of the frame to the center of the car. I was a bad boy, I did a flange and lap weld on the pretty thin roof panel. My car, and I'm OK with that.
Once trimmed to fit, the Ford frame matched the body contours very well. Outside of grinding down the welds, very little hammer and dolly work would probably make the transition between the two panels almost filler less. I'm not going to invest that much time on this car, there is a lot of filler in this beat up old body shell. I do hope I can get my computer up and running so I could show you how close the fit really is.
I still have to add the reinforcements between the package tray and the rear window. The package tray is what the heavy deck lid is hinged and sprung from. I haven't even looked at that yet, but the original Plymouth only had 4 brackets between the two, so it shouldn't be too hard.
The back window repair came out a lot better then the quarter window pinch weld repair, and took less time as well. I'm going to guess I have some where around 10 hours in the rear window swap and that would include a lot of slow process mig welding on sheet metal with .035 wire. Gene

 

Salt in the trunk reminds me of a "barn find " 55 Crown Vic I heard about 15 years ago. A guy in the parts store was telling me about one of his relatives that had parked a 55 Crown Victoria in his Grandpa's barn in the late 60's when the trans blew up. Grandpa had died and they were selling the place so they were selling off stuff cheap to clear it out. I went to check it out. The engine and trans were gone along with almost all the trim and even the dash was stripped. It seems someone had found a big sale on bagged salt sometime in the past and stored it in the car. The trunk and interior was loaded with it. With the holes in the barn roof, the windows down and the cows had beat hell out of the car getting to the salt you can imagine what was left of the Ford. The nut job that was in charge offered to let me have first chance at it for $1,000. Needless to say I passed on his great deal! I later heard they had to pay to get some one to winch it out of there and it pulled apart in the process.

 

Aw, come on ! ! You know what traditionalists say. "No pictures, NEVER HAPPENED" ! LOL.

 

scotty if you would have told me there was barbeque on your trip, i would have got the old car out and joined ya!

 

Man, that is a nice car! That year Vett is the ONLY one I would ever own, just wonderful.

 

I would love to drive mine today but it is wet and rainy. I just washed it and waxed it last weekend before I took my wife out for a date in it.

 

Why'd you go and ruin a nice car like that by putting a box of Busch light in it?

 

Liking this load better than the salt!

 

Buuuussssssssccccccccchhhhhhhhhhh!!! That's old Latin English French for he's a cheap ass

 

My favorite year also. Love it!

 

Took the words outa my mouth...How can you drive a Machine like THAT, and drink cheap-ass beer? (Sed the guy from the Macro-Brew capital of the lower 48)

 

I actually like cheap beer, and I don't like "good" beer. Weird huh?

 

When it’s not raining, any excuse is reason enough

 

Its OK @scotty t , I prefer swill to that expensive stuff as well.

 

Family was over today for the women's annual cookie bake. I took my 10 year old niece for a spin in the coupe. I let her shift gears and she didn't miss a one. Pic from last year:

 

Don't you worry, I'll bring plenty of shine to the reunion

 

It's raining and I just washed the car, oh well, I can wash it again - Next year! HRP