I am in the midst of a work in progress on our 1973 Mach 1. In researching info re: door glass on the 1973 Mustang I found out some interesting stuff. And, I am sure at some point if you need to change the door glass on your 73 Mustang you will want to be aware of this info.
Ford was using a bolt-in door glass design for both 1971 and 1972 Mustangs. But for 1973 they began to use rivets instead of bolts. This proved to be good info to be aware of in my case.
I had become aware of the use of rivets in 1973 Mustangs in advance, so I was able to purchase a bunch of glass attachment plastic and metal parts before beginning work on this project. But, I was not able to find where I could get
new attachment parts, so I purchased used parts from WCCC, eBay, & Amazon. Nobody had a lot of those in stock, so I think this is a very limited market.
If anyone reading my post knows where new window bolt-in fastener parts for 1971-1972 Mustangs can be purchased, please let me know so I can update my little library of information I am assembling.
I was going to replace the door glass on both the driver and passenger sides of the Mach 1 (original glass was scratched badly). I purchased the glass from ECS Automotive Concepts. Before purchasing the door glass I took photos of the CarLite, Product ID, and Date Code from the original glass, and provided it to ECS so they could etch the same information onto the new glass. They did a perfect job. So anyone looking at the glass will not easily be able to see it is aftermarket, not oem, glass.
After removing the inside door panel I had to remove the three retaining rivets from the window carrier. Here you need to be careful, as soon as you remove the 3rd rivet attaching the glass to the carrier, the glass will drop into the door unless you have it retained another way. I ended up using a set of spring hand clamps with rubber tips to clamp near the bottom of the door glass where it held the glass up, out of the door. This way I could access the three rivets securing the glass attachment plastic parts. I then used a drill to cut the rivet heads off - well kind of. For one of the rivets the rivet's pulling step (thick metal wire) did not snap off below the rivet head, so I had to use a Dremel tool to grind its head off. If you use a Dremel grinder do not let the grinder and rivet get too hot, as it will melt the plastic hardware. You may need to reuse some of those plastic parts.
I still had the window bumper stops attached to the door glass at the bottom front and bottom rear I needed to remove. For one of them I would have been able to drill its rivet head off, but the front bumper stop the rivet also had its snap off wire sticking out. So I was not going to be able to use a drill to cut the head, I was going to have to use the Dremel tool. Worse, I could not get a clear shot at the rivet for the rear bumper stop unless I cut an access hole in the door's inner sheet metal, something I was not willing to do. So, at an angle I used some pliers to break off some of the round bumper stop that was not essential in providing its bumper stop capability (you will see what I mean once you are inside your door). After that I could get the Dremel grinding bit on top of the rivet head. So I cut and ground the rivet head, but because the rivet's center sleeve apparently deformed a little when it was installed 50+ years ago, I still could not slide the plastic bumper stop off its rivet shaft.
So, what to do. I can't get a saws-all inside there (fortunately). But, in a moment's flash of ingenuity I decided to use my air chisel to cut off the remaining head of the rivet along with the deformed part of its shank. What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately, Lynda needed to help me hold the door glass in place when I began to use the air chisel, otherwise I would have recorded a spectacular video of the door glass becoming reduced to tiny pieces - which fortuitously made for an easier job of removing the glass from the door. That's right, it only took maybe two rat-a-tat impacts for the shock of the air chisel to shatter the door glass! Both glass bumper stops were inside the bottom of the door, along with most of the shattered glass. Other glass bits were on the floor beneath where I was sitting. The tempered glass did not present any serious danger to my arms or eyes (I was wearing glasses, and Lynda was wearing safety goggles). The glass shattered so well, and removed the bumper stops so effectively, that Lynda proudly said, "
That was awesome! Much faster than how I thought it was going to take. We ought to do this on the driver door glass also."
Gawd, I love how she thinks! Besides, I really want to capture the air-chisel instigated glass shattering moment on video. Our neighbor's son came by moments after, and Lynda explained to him what we were doing and how I "
decided" it was easier to shatter the glass to remove it, as opposed to taking a more conventional approach. He quickly said, "
Cool? Can I be here when you do the other door, please?" He is a cool kid. Too young to drive yet (14). But his grandfather just purchased a truly cherry 1964 Ford Falcon Sprint with a 289 4v and 4 speed manual tranny for him. This kid is set for life!
After vacuuming up the glass pieces I decided to not use the original glass bumper stops, as I had already purchased 4 used bumper stops in case anything were to happen to the original, riveted bumper stops. I found the mating halves of the bumper stop attachments were interlocked with each other in their center parts. So I decided to just use the bumper stops I had purchased. After cleaning up all the broken glass, I lowered the new door glass inside the door, and lined up one of the three bolt-in attachment holes, put the inner and outer halves of the plastic attachment pieces into place, along with their respective metal fender washers. Once those were lined up I was slipped the retaining bolt through the center of the fasteners, and then lightly tightened the retaining bolt. One of the thick metal fender washers was already threaded to accept the bolt. I left the retaining bolt a little loose initially, figuring I would tighten all three retaining bolts after I had all three in place and threaded loosely with their threaded washers.
After getting the first mounting bolt-in assembly put together it was easy to line up the other two glass holes with the carrier, and get their attachment pieces in place and secured with their bolts and threaded washers. After the bolt-ins were assembled I tightened the bolts up. Fearing stressing the glass to the point of shattering it, I did’t tighten the retaining bolts a huge amount. Tight enough is tight enough. There is another nut, which is used as a jam nut, to make certain the assembly does not come apart due to the threaded washer and bolt vibrating loose over time. I did tighten the jam nuts a bit more than I tightened the bolt and threaded washers, as doing so added no stress to the glass.
The two replacement window bumper stops did not come with bolts, so I had to purchase some 1/4" diameter NC bolts and respective extra wide fender washers, lock washers & nuts to tighten the door glass bumper stops once I had secured the door glass to its carrier. It is a bit of a game trying to line up the various attachment pieces and then sliding the bolts into place. The tightening of the bolt and nut was tedious. As with the glass mount bolt-in parts I did not over tighten the bumper stops. I did use a lock washer with the nut, so I do not expect either bumper stop to loosen up.
So, previously I mentioned a video we did for this little operation. Well, it was for more than just the glass replacement. I had a door latch that was not working properly that I also replaced while the inner door panel was off. And, I purchased a set of door lock cylinder that I had programmed to match the key for our 1973 Mustang Convertible, so now I have one set of keys that will work for both Mustangs. But wait! There's more! We also have a 1969 Shelby GT500. So on the new key blanks I purchased in addition to the lock cylinder and key kit, I cut one edge of the key blade to work with the two 73 Mustangs. I cut the other edge of the key blade to work with the Shelby. So, in essence one key works with all three cars, despite the Shelby's key cut being different than the Mustang key cuts. So the video captures the door latch and lock cylnder being replaced on the passenger door before I ever get to replacing the glass.
Anyway, knowing I had to do all this work on the two doors over the course of several days, I decided to place the initial video on my YouTube channel showing the first door being worked on. Once I video record the driver door related work I will either append the initial video with the new driver door content, or I will publish the driver door in a separate video with its link added to the first video's description.
So, for anyone interested in seeing how I did all that work (sorry, no glass shattering action was recorded, yet), you can watch the video at the following link. I will update the description for the video to give the mm:ss time marker where each section begins for the door latch, lock cylinder, and glass replacement related work.
https://youtu.be/2B5zPGDBznU
