[chuzz]

Hey Guys, one of my brothers just purchased a 61 T-Bird and is doing some work on it. He's stuck on how to get the vent widows out to replace the rubber gaskets around them. Any of you know how to do this? He's reached the point of he's going to just cut them with a razor knife and cut the new ones and put some sealer on the seam. These are one piece gaskets and I told him to wait until I asked here. He's agreed, but knowing him, he won't wait too long. He's very impatient and stubborn. So if any of you have restored an older car with the vent windows and know how to get them out, I'd appreciate your feed back and so will my brother. I thought they had screws under the gasket, but he said he's pulled the old one out in pieces and doesn't see any screws in it. I don't have a clue, as I've never had to do this before and cars nowadays don't have the vent or "wing" windows.

 

[dana44]

The wing window comes out with bolts/screws on the front edge, back edge, and bottom of the whole unit, look under the weatherstipping.
Rivets or tiny screws may be used to hold the felt and may be in a metal frame, cutting won't do any good if the frame still needs removed.
Get a shop manual, factory ones show how everything goes together, thus comes apart, do it right once and save money, plenty of Tbird restoration places out there.

 

[chuzz]

Thanks Dana. I heard back from Jim about an hour ago and he found the shop manual that he had misplaced. I'll relay what you said. He called a guy he plays softball with that has a body shop and that guy told him he'd have to remove the door panel and access a nut or two from inside the panel. If I know my brother, he's going to cut something and try to piece it in, just because he doesn't want to make the effort. If I had his money, I'd have a nice old Mopar done the right way. I don't mind taking my time in order to do something right. He's beginning to find out why the guy he got it from gave up on it after spending $5,500 on parts. Apparently he went as far as he could with it and decided to unload it. My brother happened to be the right pigeon that came along. Fifteen years older than me and I've never been able to talk the blue oval out of him, even though I've had to help him solve several problems with them over the years! I'll take my Mopars over any of the rest, any day.

 

[dana44]

I hear you on that one. I have an uncle the same way, touch anything and turn it to gold, had some rather nice cars over the years, has an old English Ford that raced the shows called Bad Trip (blown small block quarter miler from the late 60s I believe). Garage owner and mechanic, good with the wrenches. Got a call a couple months back from one of his two sons to talk about Mopars and what to do, imagine someone with his knowledge telling his son his nephew knew more than he did. Of course I am more of the performance end of anything, he was quick diagnose and part replacement, but he had the money to have others build things like '32 Vickie with the 2.3 Tbird turbo, or the 53 Chevy with the crate engine big block plug and play, things like that.

Make your brother take the panels off and do it right, that's all I ask.

 

[chuzz]

I would, Dana, but he lives about 130 miles away from me, so I'm not going to make that drive! He now wants me to help him find a "decent" 63 or 64 Impala. I told him that they never made such a thing. LOL He's so tight with a buffalo nickle that he squeezes it so hard you can see a t--d shooting out of the buffalos rear end.