VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Upholstery - Interiors & Glass Window channels etc.

I'm restoring my 35 Standard Coach. I have no window channels, fuzzies, or anything other than the regulators. I've been browsing through Steele Rubber and The Filling Station. It seems they both have most of the stuff I need, and TFS says they use a lot of the rubber gaskets and weather stripping from Steele. Has anyone used either or both? Should I get the rubber stuff from Steele and window channels etc. from TFS? Any advise will be appreciated. Thanks.

I just did this on my '25 Sedan. I got all my stuff from Gary Wallace, but I actually think he get's his channels and stuff from Steeles. Just make sure you get the right thickness, I had to sand all of my side rubber pieces down on the backsides in order for the windows to be able to move freely up and down. Other than that I have no complaints.

How do I know what the right size is? I don't have any glass and I don't have anything to measure.

Hello Peter,
The best thing to know what size channel you need is to ask like you’ve done. I often look for someone who’s restoring or restored the same year car and private message them. I would suggest you look around at the majority of parts suppliers, even the small guys as I’ve saved easily $2 per foot on window channels alone. When doing a complete restoration you will use a fair amount of rubber products (into the hundreds of dollars) and while I believe strongly in supporting our vendors, I’ve found many don’t try supporting their frequent buyer customers much which I don’t understand. I’ve already bought hundreds of feet of window channels doing restorations as a hobby and found many suppliers won’t discount at all unless you’re an official business but I have found some who’ll discount simply because you do a fair amount of business with them and are loyal. Those are the vendors that get the majority of my returning business. Help me, I’ll help you sort of speaking. Just my two cents.

I truthfully don't know what the right size is either. I had to depend on the retailer to tell me what depth I needed, not even sure if there was an option for my car. Tonight I put in my new windshield and I had bought a rubber kit for the windshield. When I first put the windshield in it was so tight that the windshield would not move, I have the V/V windshield. I had to take it back out and sand off some of the rubber from the backside, it runs up and down smoothly now.

Chistech, you or Cabboy may know the answer to this question as you both have done so much restoration work. I was wondering, since the older cars have so much wood, do the bodies tend to have some variation in the basic templates? Not sure I'm asking that correctly, but just like the windows, is it possible that I could have taken these same window rubber pieces to another car and they might have fit perfectly and allowed the windows to move freely without having to shave off any of the backside rubber?

Hi Jeff,
Not sure if you had new glass made up but if you did, lots of times the glass adds to the problem. Every single VV windshield I’ve done has been tight with the new rubber and it is intended that way. You don’t want your windshield rattling around while you’re driving and with use and just plain driving it around, it will loosen up the windshield glass. You’ll be fine even though you sanded the back so don’t worry about it. Spray silicone helps and even a little white grease has been used to help the windshields move up and down easier when they’re new.
I have seen some differences side to side in these cars but more with the assembly rather than the actual shape or size of the wood. I have seen pieces put in the wrong location and pieces of wood added to make up for the mistake. I’ve found many miss driven nails just bent over and some bolts drilled way out of line. The roof lines are the worse with many new holes drilled when the roofer had a hard time following the pre stamped oval slots in the metal. I’ve also seen pieces laminated in crazy ways with no means of reasoning why it would be done other than to save wood or it was cut out of a piece that was already made up. Perhaps it was GMs way to make new “crumble zones” if the car was in an accident! LOL
My own 32’ Olds which I almost completely re-wooded, all the pieces were mirror images of each other, side to side, and that is the way I reconstructed the wood framing. My sheet metal has fit back perfectly. The window openings on these cars are sized based on the stamped sheet metal as the majority of the openings have nail or tacking ridges formed into the metal. Can the wood be off in the openings some to cause variations, sure, but most are pretty close. Most wood issues are not from original wood but bad fitting repairs. Over these last 3 years I’ve worked on about 15 GM wood bodied cars, either here in my garage, at a fellow car guy in New Bedford, and another old timer who has a few wood bodied GMs among his collection. The majority of that work has been repairing bad repairs with a few being general wood deterioration. I have not seen much variation In wood, either side to side, or even car to car based on the same year cars.

Chistech,
Very interesting observations. Quite a testament to the workmanship from years gone by.

I did have a new windshield made, but I believe it's the same width. My side windows had the same problem and I did not change those. All of the windows have been challenging, as a matter of fact my rear passenger side window is still tight, but I'm hoping that it will loosen up over time like you mentioned.

Thanks for your input