Be sitting down when you read this...

[Dave]

After many, MANY months of financially induced hibernation, Project Blue Bird has actually stirred a bit. I took advantage of the perfect holiday weekend weather and spent some time in the shop.

I decided to tackle getting the side glass and related assemblies back together. I knew it was going to be a fun adventure with the upgrade to power windows. Having the FSM and parts manual at hand got me through most of the challenges. Biggest difference between power and manual setups is how the regulator physically mounts to the car. Both for the quarter windows and the door glass - the regulators mount "canted" about 30deg compared to their manual counterparts. Everything else is the same. The quarter window hardware is in - the doors are waiting on some new nylon slides to arrive from our good friends at R/T Specialties.

I have the wiring harness installed, and I've bench tested all of the switches. They all need some TLC, but from the little bit of work I've done on them, I think they will clean up pretty well.

Hopefully my work load professionally will settle down enough that I can keep some momentum going on this!

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Having performed that conversion myself recently, locating original components, specifically the correct original rear power regulators proved to be the biggest challenge for me. Have yet to locate an original right rear quarter window power regulator for the 71-72’s. Have since located a left one, after the fact, and may change it out at sometime down the road. I started with a complete set of power regulators for 73’, different window lift mechanism in the rear, had to cut and splice the levers from 72’ rear manual regs to the 73’ rear power regs. In the rear, not only do the power regs use a different set of mounting holes, the drive gear/lever pivot point is in a completely different position in relation to the mounted manual reg. Not having a 71-72’ rear power reg in hand at the time for direct comparison, determining the correct lever length required mapping out/measuring this change in pivot point location with both regs mounted in the car.
Hope to find a decent set of upper rear trim panels one day without the window crank holes, currently running some trim plugs.

[Dave]

Oh man, that couldn't have been easy at all! It took me long enough to get my head around how the whole mechanics works when I had the right pieces, let alone trying to mock up something with different parts. My hat is off to you!

I was fortunate enough to find a 72 Charger with a complete and unmolested setup. I did part of the pull, and then had someone local (car was in a boneyard up in Maine) finish it up. I wish I'd had more time with that car, as the complete hidden headlight setup would also have come home with me, along with a number of other parts.

[bruce]

Woohoo, glad to hear you're turning some wrenches on it! But I'm betting my white Runner will still beat Bluebird to Carlisle again. Now which one LOOKS better and is more "perfect" will be an entirely different matter.

[Dave]

Oh yea - no doubt yours will get to Carlisle before Project Blue Bird. If I can keep things moving that I have time and finances, I still have the goal of having her out for the 40th next year. Granted - it's very likely she'll be 383 powered. I highly doubt the $$$ will show up to allow the Hemi install.

[CtownRunner]

Great news. I'll keep my eyes open when I drive by your place.

[Dave]

Some more work over the weekend. Got the necessary replacement slides for the door regulators (from Tom over at R/T Specialties) and installed them. Also called Fritz over at FPAP and had him send me a correct set of wing to stanchion brackets for the spoiler. So her original wing is back in place, and the passenger quarter window is installed now too.

The tinted glass I picked up for the car years ago came with one very cool bonus. The passenger quarter window still had an original Road Test Car of the Year decal intact. It's not perfect, but it's absolutely in good enough shape to keep.

[Dave]

Worked on the Bird again last night. Got the driver's door window completely assembled and working. Though through the process of getting everything aligned correctly, I managed to break one of the welds on the new slides for the regulator. *DOH!* Looks like we should be able to clean it up and re-weld it, but it does mean that EVERYTHING has to come back out of the door again. At least I know how it all goes together now.

Looks like in the process of figuring out how it all needs to be aligned, I bound it up enough to stress and weaken the weld - and then once we put the weight of the glass on it - that was more than it could handle.

Even so, it does look great to see all the side glass in the car on one side.

[sogtx]

Glad youre gaining momentum ..

im exactly in the same boat with my junk.. march 2nd got windows going ..
then i kept running into bad glass . chipped . scratched , spent hours poilishing

finally hit a car i didnt want to take apart and got good glass -

allready to be installed ..

then i shot my eye out in an accident with a table saw .

everything was in limbo .. for three months . No fun putting in window assemblies with one eye ..

finally back to work .. Im broke .. but catching up ..

wear your safety goggles

eye.jpg (93.44 KiB) Viewed 10678 times

[sogtx]

Good thing is Dudek is dynoing my fast car even though i have no business racing it yet ythis year .. hes almost done tuning her up .. Its been in Michigan for months .. Seven months since ive seen my car or touched it ... Im kind of in withdrawal .. glad hes getting it spiffed up for me as I cant do much mechanically for a while ..

sotry to hijack your post , glad someones in the same boat as me and getting stuff done ..

Please post progress ..

[Eric]

Glad youre gaining momentum ..

im exactly in the same boat with my junk.. march 2nd got windows going ..
then i kept running into bad glass . chipped . scratched , spent hours poilishing

finally hit a car i didnt want to take apart and got good glass -

allready to be installed ..

then i shot my eye out in an accident with a table saw .

everything was in limbo .. for three months . No fun putting in window assemblies with one eye ..

finally back to work .. Im broke .. but catching up ..

eye.jpg

Andy - Ouch!!! Did you lose the eye, or was it just temporary?

[sogtx]

probably will regain 20-30 peripheral vision from that eye , retina is pretty trashed .,..

UPDATE ON CAR IN ORIGINAL POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dave]

UPDATE ON CAR IN ORIGINAL POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not much to update. As of tonight, Project Blue Bird has been sent to her room without dinner to think about what she did.

Got that one slide on the regulator fixed, only to re-assemble the whole thing, and for no explainable reason the entire window assembly jams so badly I can't get ANYTHING to move at all - even with letting everything loose track wise. Wind up having to fight the thing apart inside the door to get the glass back off. Of course, I wind up breaking yet another weld on one of the new slides.

So, rather than take to it with a hammer or list the @#$@#%!$ thing on eBay - it's getting a time-out.

Why can't anything on this car ever be just straightforward?