Thread: 32 Ford Roadster Windshield Finger Pulls

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C9x Here is the result of a liesurely ten hour day with three trips to ACE hardware and two trips to Home Depot following several half days of ordering stuff from Bratton's Model A supply house. I am sorry that I was so pleased that I got it done that I forgot to wipe it off! The height can be adjusted after I get a top on. I used half of the pads from the rubberized cloth that came with the clamp kit and on the inside used the thinner of the rubber pads that were supposed to be reproduction rubber. The Brookville stanchions seem to be tapered more from front to back than the stock stanchions which are more rectangular in cross section so the studs that came with the clamp kit were too short and I had to make my own studs from 5/16" bolts with the heads cut off and threaded for the 5/16" NF24 thread of the clamps. Since the cross section of the stanchions is wedge shaped I used wedge shaped pieces of 3/8" neoprene fuel hose to cover the threads of the studs. It's not perfect but it passes the ten foot inspection for me. I still need to trim the rubber strip from the top of the windshield frame.

Bob, (I can help Bob???) all the furor over the swing-in windshield made me worry over it for several days and today I decided to just mock up the windshield just to see where the position for the "lip" should be and to my amazement the new rubber makes it pretty tight. In particular the side rubber binds pretty good at the top three inches of the windshield so I think anything less than a 50 mph collision with a Canadian Goose will resist moving the windshield in just based on the side rubber and the rubber along the bottom edge. The '29 stanchions have a 5/8" flat rubber strip which I glued into the groove with "GOOP" contact cement. I also ordered the 3/4" strip that was used on the '30-'31 roadsters which has a T-shape but since there is no groove for the T I went with the '29 rubber. I have been pleased to be able to buy a lot of '29 reproduction parts from Bratton's Antique Auto Parts in nearby Mount Airy Md and for my location I often receive shipment in one or two days. Their phone number is 800-255-1929 (toll free!) and the rubber strip for the '29 stanchions is part No. 28620 for only $3.75 plus shipping. The restorers say to paint the edge of the windwings black but I kind of like the way the edges "glow" a little bit. Bob why are you buying '29 stanchions? Building for yourself or a customer?

Despite the fact that this thread was originally about finger pulls and even though I bought the finger pulls, my recent adventures with drilling a round piece and the relatively tight fit of the windshield rubber lead me to expect that I never plan to swing the windshield out and so will not need the finger pulls!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder