Any of you familiar with the build thread will know I've been procrastinating on the windshield(s).
I have the origonal one but it's cracked pretty bad so it's not usable.
I made a paper template of the curvature and headed to a couple junk yards today.
I probably put it on a hundred cars just to find that almost every single car, truck, van, big or small, short or tall, came up with the same radius from left to right!!!! Which was too shallow. All of them had about 1/2" gap in the center of the template. :/
Getting frustrated I headed to the next junk yard with paper template in hand.
I was looking in the import section when I came across a 1979 Volvo 240. It looked pretty freakin close! Only 1/8" gap in the center of the template.
I figured this might work, but also thought maybe I can find better.
Then I came across a 1986 Saab 900! Dang near perfect!!!
Right after that I found a 1972 Datsun 280z which was PERFECT!!!!
Since I was working with a paper template, which I found if I don't pull the card paper tight and carefully set on the surface of the glass, I could taint the observation and make it SEEM like said glass would work when in fact, the template was skewed.
SO, I went home to make a wood template with the proper curvature and roughly the right size of the windshield on the rat rod.
Here is the template on the origonal glass:
Roughly the same size as the glass I need:
Even follows the body contour pretty well:
My thinking is that to take this (more rigid) template to the junk yard and check the cars again. The goal is to find a few cars, or at least 2 so I can buy NEW glass, which should be easier to cut. Old glass can be brittle and when cutting can fracture unexpectedly. I want a couple different cars so I can price shop between the two. One might be more expensive then the other, and I have to buy 2 since I can't cut 2 pieces out of 1 windshield.
I'll either try my hand at this myself, or price out through my buddy (who is a glass expert) having it cut to a template I make once I have the windshield rubber in hand.
Believe it or not, both of these cars have almost identicle radius'
My guess is the dautsun will be cheaper as the glass is smaller.
I also got 4 pieces of 1/4" laminated DoT SAFTY glass for the side and rear windows to the tune of $40. It's not tempered, but it's better then any other option for custom glass!
ALSO, for what it's worth, 1991 Isuzu Troopers have perfectly flat windshields just in case anyone is looking for an easy place to find proper flat windshield glass for their project.
