homemade conv. window finished.

[cacaface]

Well it's been a while that i was driving around with a brown/yellow window that was impossible to see out of. I finally got some money and quit my job and started on the project.

We (me and mom lol) unscrewed everything and took out the back window with the canvas peice and also the metal bar; took out the few staples needed to get it out of car also. With the canvas/window/metal peice out, we unstiched the window, and that took a little while, but not too long. We bought some marine vinyl, but my mom didnt like that, so we went to a place, and they had something just for convertible windows and jeeps. The guy was calling it plexiglass... I dunno if it is or not. We also had to buy some nice thread for the window to attach it back to the canvas. marine vinyl I didn't use $15. The plexiglass $20, the thread about $15. So for about $35 we bought the materials.

Anyway, so after you take the top out of the car, which was a hassle, and took about 20 mins, and made me super sweaty we unstiched it like i said, which was about 15-20 mins. After that, we cut the plexiglass to the size of the old window. That was like 3 minutes. (accidentally cut some of the flaps though, but didn't matter since we just attached extra plexiglass in place of it)

After we cut the window to size, it was time to start stiching it to the canvas. We didn't take all the staples out off the metal bar, which turned out to be more of a hassle possibly. Atleast the canvas staying in the right place on the bar. Anyway, the sewing machine was hard. It took us about 2 days to finish, but not like 24 hour project or anything. It was tough using my mom's machine, and took the both of us to do it. Total time was about 2-3 hours of stiching since it wasn't an industrial machine.

Basically, it's almost worth it to work 1 or 2 days to buy the canvas + window for about $170. All up to you guys though, since you have to take out the window/canvas/metal bar anyway. I kinda enjoyed doing it, but if you don't have a good sewing machine, it's hard. Also, right now i have a bit of slack in my back window, but I think it kinda looks cool. Just thought people would like to know what they are getting into. Also, the restapling really wasn't bad at all. I had an electric stapler, and it was simple. Two man job though pretty much all throughout, except removing the window from the car.

If anyone needs anyhelp, email me at [email protected]. I'll try to help out, i have some pics on my phone, but nothing special.

Edit- pics

old window



New window





rear veiw mirror!!Modified by cacaface at 11:00 AM 11/29/2007
Modified by cacaface at 11:03 AM 11/29/2007

[distant240sx]

Pictures man, You need Pictures!!!!!!!!!I might speak for the majority when i say,

[DirftKing102]

Can you provide me with pics? I would love to see what the project was all about.

[DeXteR]

i read through the first couple lines and stopped to scroll down and look at pictures. there were none. i'm not coming back to this topic till i see pictures.

[cacaface]

lol, give me a few days, gotta take a chord over my friends house so I can transfer my pics. I don't have any good pics, just with the new plastic in. I took a few random pictures to try to show some important things when taking the window off, but I'm not sure if they are any good. Anyway, just give me a couple days. srry : )

[cacaface]

pics up, top of page.

[DeXteR]

better late than never.

looks pretty good. not bad for a novice at home. it's way better than cracked, cloudy plastic.

[cacaface]

ya late... I ran out of money, so I stopped working on my car, so I just got emo and didn't do anything on the site. I still don't have money, but I needed help installing something so I found my chord and put up the pics.

[94_240sx]

Is there anyway you can give more tension and make rear window look like this?

[cacaface]

ya, when you are stapling it back in I beleive. It's hard to put the staples in the same exact spots, but possible. I think the window might have to stretch out a little... but I'm not sure. The material I got doesn't need to be stretched much if at all. But if you go with something like marine vinyl it'll need to be stretched out more. I was just too tired (and it was raining) to unstaple and get it situated right.

[1SickSilvia]

not bad at all for a DIY.

[krash]

ive gotta do this to mine....





im gonna be usin this thred alot

[cacaface]

LOL nice window and is your car water damaged?I've got some more pics of random things, i'll upload em and try to describe whats going on... it's been a while.



Those would be the staples, I'd suggest making some sort of markings as to where the cloth meets the rubber, and if you can, try to put the new staples in where the old ones were, I think that would make the window a lot tighter than mine. The staples is one of the last things you do before putting everything back in the car. (gotta read over what I wrote, I read another forum on here to help me out with this.) zerothread/230855



This is the bar on the top of the window... wow this thing was crap to get off.. just grab some wd40 to help slide it off.



This is an image of when I was unstapling from the silver thing... the material from the top was folded wierd or something, so just keep an eye on that and make sure u put it back the same way, obviously. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me.

[krash]

thanks a bunch for the extra in fo man! i changed the whole curtain on my sister's vert and in was a PITA, it costed $300, and its not even tight. so i figured with mine i might as well not spend the $300 and make it myself. and no my car is not water damaged, the previous owner just raped the back window......

[cacaface]

lol, well whatever makes the previous owner happy...The hardest thing when doing it yourself is the sewing...just keep that in mind and no you can't hand sew it.

[krash]

yes my mother is a master of the machine so i sshould be fine there. but knowing her indian self, the cheap side is gonna come out and shes gonna charge me for it LMAO!