Rear window frame is gone. How to replace/fix?

Howdo partypeople.

Last weekend I removed the last remaining piece of glass; the rear window. I handled a lot of unpleasant surprises on my car but this one took the cake. The edge that the window lies against is 75% rotted away.

Have a look:



That edge is basically made up of the edges of 2 panels spotwelded together. So not only does it support the window, it also holds inside panels positioned against the outer panels. The edges of the inner panels seem to be OK but most of the edges from the outer panels is gone.

I've come a long way with my body work, I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel but this sucks. I will not give up but it's just a bit difficult seeing the path ahead so to speak.

Surely I'm not the first person running into this mess. So if anybody who reads this has any pointers as to how to replace/fix this edge I'd very much like to hear it!

Thanks,
VIncent.

I think the first option to consider would be a donor car window rail. Otherwise, just a lot of patience forming and duplicating what is there. It may seem daunting, but if you do small sections at a time and work your way around you will eventually get there. Just don't settle on good enough, it will be worse the farther you get, just stay patient and work your way around. I saw a guy on youtube do a section of window rail on an old Pontiac or something and he went way out of his way to make each turn and radius exactly perfect, in the end you couldn't tell it was replaced!! Good luck!!

I did this repair on my 71 Cougar last August. I found the carpets soaked one morning after I had forgotten to put the it in the garage for the night. Turns out someone had been there already, as I pulled out about a full tube of clear silicone caulk.

My rear window channel was in much better shape than yours, but it was still a challenging repair, primarily as I had to be careful to not damage the paint on the transition panel. There are three layers of sheetmetal spotwelded together - the transition panel, the reinforcement panel underneath that, and the rear package tray. I didn't take a lot of pics, but I was able to plug weld many of the rust holes. I did lay metal under the areas that were too large to plug weld. I finished it off with seam sealer and paint. The gasket and glass were installed with CRL 7708 bedding and glazing compound, since the 3M product is out of production.

For your repairs, I would have some appropriate gauge sheetmetal formed to replicate the channel and lip. Sandblasting the entire lip would be my first step. You'll also need to replace the studs for the trim clips during the process. I was able to work around mine and save all of them.

Mine was not that bad, and replacing the quarter panels and roof solved a lot of my problems around the rear window on the Rickster. I've watched a lot of videos on YouTube by Fitzee's Fabrication and he does cover the rear window repairs, as well as most others. You can check out his rear window video at


Good luck with your repairs.

This is the video I was talking about!! Good find!!

I watched the video, thanks for that. I guess I'm going to have te peel off the outer skin inside the channel carefully as it's rusted against the inner skin badly. It's just gonna be a shitload of work I guess. On the upside it will give me more time to save money for other things that are coming ;-)

Vinnie said:

I watched the video, thanks for that. I guess I'm going to have te peel off the outer skin inside the channel carefully as it's rusted against the inner skin badly. It's just gonna be a shitload of work I guess. On the upside it will give me more time to save money for other things that are coming ;-)

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A good attitude keeps challenges like these in perspective. Looking forward to see your progress!