Broken Window Bracket, Now What? (Pic)

Hi again, can you tell I’m spending my “lock-down” working on the E-Type?

The passenger window never went up right. Now I see why.

The bracket was missing when it came apart. Can I spot weld a new one in with the window attached. Do I replace the whole bottom frame? How on earth do I get the bottom frame off?

Help,
BrianM
64 3.8 S1 FHC

Brian,
The bottom channel can be removed by carefully prying it off the glass - use some heat to soften the setting tape that is holding the glass into the channel. Once it is out, welding the bracket back on can be done - but I wouldn’t try it with the glass in place.

I wouldn’t. Good chance of the glass breaking from the sudden heat in one spot.

And if it didn’t break any spatter might deface the glass. John’s suggestion of heat, use a heat gun and play it evenly over the entire length of the channel, is a good one.

Looks like the regulars don’t sell just the missing bracket but the whole assy.
I’ll try some heat and gentle prying

You’ll have to take it off.

If you look in the bottom of your door the original bracket might just be siting there.

If you find the missing bracket in the bottom of the door clean up the mating areas on both pieces and attach the bracket back on with some structural adhesive. 3m and Lord Fusor both make very good ones but they are pretty expensive for just one small job. If you were to use a small handheld sandblaster to do the cleaning and supply a good tooth after suitable masking to protect the glass I would be willing to bet that plain old JB weld would do the trick perfectly well. Why mess with removing the glass and risk breaking it if you don’t need to. Old glass does get brittle.

I am in the process of replacing my window and bracket, my window shattered a few months ago. As it was mentioned you can get a replacement bracket from the usual’s which is what I did. Mine was rotted out a bit even though my cat is rust free.

Unless you find the broken segment inside the door, I suspect you’ll have a hard time bending up a new one. Those channels are available new but people have reported them being too wide to secure the glass without some fuss. I’d just scour ebay for one, or ring someplace that has a lot of used parts like Welsh. Here’s one on Ebay

Looks like all on ebay and in stock are for Drop Heads. Right hand door FHC closest is in UK and shipping is sketchy right now. I could get a whole window and remove it But the cost goes up.

Do these clips slide along the regulator as it goes up and down? Why clips and not screws?

BrianM
'64, S1, 3.8 FHC

Although the glass is certainly car specific, I’m not so sure the channel would be.

What clips, the range limiter? Clips can be adjusted to the specific car whereas screws wouldn’t be. Also probably better function with the rollers bumping into a limiter stop rather than a screw.

edit: BTW if you’re missing the limiter block, it’s just a 1/8" piece of steel that fits inside the channel with a screw hole threaded into it. After being positioned, you tighten the screw and it locks the block into the channel.

What I’m thinking is taking it apart welding on my own “clip” and once fitted to the car maybe adding a screw to hold a tight fit.

If you think you can make those folds sure. It would be beyond my meager abilities.

OK I found a complete window and clamping frame on e-bay. Even tinted like my windows. My hope was I could just put it in and avoid trying to pry/melt the frames off of both pieces of glass. The New/old window as some scratches one fairly deep. Can I polish this out? How? And will it damage the tint?

If it’s deep enough to catch a finger nail, you could polish for about 4651 hours and still not have it out. That diagonal one looks like a jet contrail. Since you don’t need to care whether this one breaks, go ahead and heat it or just shatter it. Spray the other with penetrating oil and let it set up over night. There really isn’t much holding it on. Since you’ll be discarding that steel channel, you could just carefully slice the bottom of it with a Dremel cutoff wheel and snap it off.

OK will try all of those methods. What do I glue it back together with. Looks like tar paper in there now.

BrianM

Depends how much room there is in the channel to fill. Some kind of grip tape either rubber or fabric. Silicone would work also.

You can use either a glass setting tape (looks like tar paper) or a caulking that is developed just for glass installation (looks like black goo).
Google these to find any number of sources. If you want to use setting tape, then some measurements of the width of the channel and the thickness of the glass are needed to select to correct thickness of the setting tape. It comes in sizes 1/32" apart.

I had a door glass come unstuck from it’s mechanism on another car a while back. I stopped by a auto glass shop and they sold me a tube of black urethane like you describe.

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This is it. Great stuff but unfortunately impossible to sufficiently seal once opened. I suspect it’s substantially similar to their black trim cement in a tube.