VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 Door glass channel installation help needed

I am hoping someone here can help me. I've got a 1937 GMC pickup that I just had painted. I am now in the process of trying to install the door glass and seals. I got a complete door glass channel kit from Chevs of the 40s, but I am not sure how it all goes together. The kit came with 2 rubber wipers for the inside and outside of the glass, and those are not a problem. But the channel and clips and screws are a different story. When I got the truck, all of these parts were already removed, so I have no idea where what goes. Any thoughts, comments, pictures or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I dont know how their window channel kits are made but I used universal channel in my 37 and used weather strip adhesive to glue it in.

I might end up doing that as well if I cannot figure out where the screws and clips go. They came with the kit, but no directions. Hopefully someone who has done this or a similar install will give me a reply. This really has me stumped.

Its been so long since I took out the original channels I have no clue how it originally put togather.

Don't know about '37 but my '31s and '28s used screws at the top of the channel. That was because to install the window it was necessary to bend the channel toward the inside of the car and then fit it back into the window opening. The bottom was held in place with a metal track but the channel could still move up and down. The top screw stopped that.

I did the channels on my 41 two months back, I don't know if it's the same as the 37 but I used 1/2 #4 flat head screws. I put black silcone on the heads.

Do you have a photo of the parts that came with the kit and the parts you have from inside the door, that might help. Chevs of the 40s doesn't have a photo of what's in the kit.

Brian

Well, I can take a photo of the parts in the kit. As for what was in there from the factory, I have nothing. I got the truck in pieces, and these pieces were missing. When I bought the kit, I was hoping for instructions, but none were included. I do know a guy with a similar truck in the next town. I think I am going to have to try to track him down and see if he would be willing to take his inner door panel off so I can have a little look see.

IMHO that would be your best course of action by far.

I agree, and take a camera. I'll tell you that in my case the main problem was with the door itself. On the inside, along the same edge as the door lock, running from the window opening down into the door about 18 inches is a metal retainer for the window guide rubber. It is welded onto the inside of the door and holds the "_|_|_ " shaped rubber guide inside that edge of the door. The metal is shaped like a smashed "C" channel and the rubber slips down into the door, inside the "C" channel. At the bottom, below where the window stops, the "C" channels is pinched onto the rubber guide to hold it in place.

My "C" channel was rusted out and I had to have a new one made by a sheetmetal company and I welded it to the frame that is inside the door. The good thing was that it really only fits in one way so you don't have to worry too much about alignment.

All the alignment is on the other side of the door, at the other window retainer guide, by the door handle. Hopefully you have that part as it is not offered anywhere I know of. It bolts in at the top at the window opening and has an ajustable bolt at the bottom that allows you to move the window in and out to slide straight up into the frame. It has a metal backed, rubber guide that is rivetted to the metal door retainer.

Good luck, it is one of the more difficult parts of the restoration.

Brian

OK, now I really have to find the guy with the truck! I am having a hard time visualizing all of the parts just mentioned. I really wish I was the one who took this all apart, then I'd have some idea of how it all goes back together. Unfortunately, I got this thing as a basket case, and I am not even sure if I have all of the parts. Does anyone know if a shop manual would have pictures or an exploded view of how this all goes together? I have looked at a Chevrolet cat and truck shop manual, but it seems like it only gives a description of the cars and not the trucks. I am not sure if there was a shop manual specific to the trucks or not.

Hopefully trucks aren't completely different then cars, here is a view of the inner "C" channel:

Fig 107

The location of the adjusting bolts for the other guide in Fig 136:

Fig 136

Brian

Scramble,

The trucks are a little different from the cars--I did my 38 coupe last year and right now I'm working on the 38 panel truck doors. I'm not sure if the GMC has the same system as the Chevrolet, but if it does, I will try to describe the system on my 38 panel in hopes that it will be helpful to you. The window track is U-shaped and measures 5/8" on the bottom and 1/2" on the sides (I still have some of the original pieces and I just measured them). The track is metal-backed and flexible; the inside of the track is covered with the black fuzzy stuff (that's a technical term!). As Brian indicates in the previous post, the ends of the channel slip into a track below the window line (the truck tracks are a little different from the car's, but there is kind of a clip on the end of the track into which slips the bottom, back, flat part of the channel.

The channel, as mentioned, is flexible and curves up and around the top of the window channel in the door. The actual channel may be in more than one piece, or it might be one long strip (the original pieces that I removed seemed to be in two pieces for each door). At any rate, on the Chevy there are several holes along the middle of the channel, about 1/4" in diameter. These holes are for the clips that are attached to the back of the flexible channel. These clips on the original appear to be integral to the channel (welded on?) and are ball-shaped (with slits in each little ball). They protrude from the back of the channel 3/8" and, at least on the original, they snap into the corresponding holes and are held there by friction (the little slits in the balls allow them to collapse when pressed in, then spring back). There are enough holes in the frame of the door of the window channel to hold the fuzzy channel in there, along with being anchored at each lower end by the clip at the end of the track (described above). This is a different (and neater) arrangement than that found in the car, which uses tiny screws through the back/bottom of the channel to attach to the door (and whose heads are "buried" into the felt.

The problem that I'm anticipating (because I'm going to have to use new channel on my doors as well) is that the aftermarket replacements probably won't have the precise system of attachment as do the originals, i.e., they probably won't have the little ball-shaped clips attached to the back of the flexible channel. You can examine yours and you will see immediately whether they have such clips or not. My hunch is that the aftermarket stuff will substitute some other sort of clip (this was the case, e.g., when I re-did the inner panels on my car--different sort of clips were used from the originals; and the same for the felt replacements for the window post channels, etc.). At any rate, you will need to determine this and perhaps use the holes present in the door frame to attach accordingly, or perhaps you will have to resort to cement of some sort.

At any rate, the flexible felt window channel should insert and fit into the track fairly straighforwardly; it will be the attachment that might be tricky. The rest should be fairly easy and straightforward.

I hope this description is helpful to you. Unfortunately, I'm going out of town for the next several weeks and leaving early in the morning--otherwise I would have tried to send you a couple pics of the actual original window channel.

Good luck!

Jim