My stupid question for the month of March (window plugs)

[Ghoste]

I have a gut feeling this is a really stupid thing to ask, but why has no one tried to reproduce window plugs?  Are they that complex?

[Daytona R/T SE]

You can get one from Ted Janek in fiberglass (Makes a nice pattern to build your own, by the way)

Dayclona and a couple of other guys offer them in steel for about $2500-$3000.

The reproduction glass to fit these is expensive ( I paid $675 for mine)

The trim is either big bucks (used, very rare) or a do-it-yourself project.

You either have to have deep pockets, or have the skills to make your own. I'm a tight-ass, so guess which way I went

[Ghoste]

Okay.  I just hadn't heard any talk of anything but Vega hatches and I just noticed in the pics of Gene's Daytona restoration that the plug didn't look that complex but there is a lot there you don't see.
I can't speak to the cost of the repro ones you mention, it seems that right now, if you want to go wing, the pockets need to be deep.  And full.

[Daytona R/T SE]

From what I've seen of the Vega hatch installations, they take a lot of work to install, I'd say almost as much effort as it took me to make my steel plug from scratch.  ( Vega hatch guys correct me if I'm wrong) Either way there is no free lunch...It's a lot of work. I just love it when my know-it-all buddies say something stupid like "What's the big F&*%ing deal?  All you have to do is buy a wing and a nose and bolt 'em on"?

    Ignorant morons 

[Ghoste]

I hear ya.  I've never done one and have more sense than that.  A good friend of mine is wing car crazy and I can't convince him that it's going to be more than a month and a couple of thousand bucks to do one. 

[Daytona R/T SE]

A good friend of mine is wing car crazy and I can't convince him that it's going to be more than a month and a couple of thousand bucks to do one. 

Send him on over-I'll educate him for ya! 

[pandamarie]

I hope to be started on the vega hatchback install on my 69 charger in the next week or two, have to wait for my Grandson to get out of the hospital and then finish healing, He is my mechanic in training. I will take pics and post them as the work starts and progresses.
Because its going to be a clone I will probably make the forward edge of the trunk lid straight to save some time and work, plus it will be my daily driver when its done. It will be painted Black with a sublime or sassy grass stripe and wing and dark tinted windows. already shaved the door handles and antenna about 10 years ago also filled in the trunk lock and have remote trunk opener and sequential tail lights.

[Howie]

sounds great. post pics as you go. hotrod has my plug installed and I am going to pick it up sunday.

[BigBlockSam]

It's a lot of work

especially when your a crappy welder like me. Rene

[hotrod98]

I can now install a vega plug in about two days or less. Once you've done one, you instantly realize the things that you've done that were unnecessary. Here's my tips for installing the plug. The other guys may tell you differently, but this is the way that I do it. Their way may be better than mine.
At this point, I'm assuming that you already have the front trunk drip rail in place.

1.  Remove the glass, moldings and molding clips from the vega plug.
2.  Remove the paint from the plug. Optional...but it makes life easier.
3.  Grind the edge of the plug all of the way around until you have ground through the outer skin. Using the cutoff wheel, make a cut in the back reinforcement all of the way around the window opening. This will leave part of the reinforcement to act as a stiffener to prevent distortion.
4.  Seperate the skin from the reinforcement. You might use a thin knife or thin saw blade to cut through the flutter foam by sliding     
     the tool between the outer skin and the reinforcement.
5.  Cut the liftgate shock mounts off. One on each side.
6.  On the car, using as thin a cutoff blade as possible, (I use a 1/16 blade) make a cut down the entire length of the sail panel right 
     at the opening on both sides. This will allow the plug to slip down into the opening since the plug is just a little wider than the      opening.
7.  Place the plug down into the opening and move it up and down until the top of the plug is aligned to the roof where the roofline flows with the plug. There should be about a two inch gap at the top. Place self drilling screws along the edge to hold it into place. Two on   
     each side is plenty. This will leave about an inch of the plug overlapping on both sides of the opening.     
8.  Now you have to determine where to make the cuts at the bottom edge of the plug for best alignment with your front trunk drip rail.
     Each car is a little different. I think that the best, cleanest way to do it is to bring the skin all of the way down to the edge of the
     trunk opening. The tricky part is getting the plug to pull down without buckling. I cut a few relief cuts on the edges but they were a
     bitch to weld back up and there was distortion anyway. Some of the guys have done this with very little buckiling, but I haven't been
     able to perform that trick yet. I'm still learning. In other words, this is still a gray area for me.
9.  Remove the plug and determine where to attach the headliner/back glass molding retainers. I tried to order a couple of sets of 
     the moldings from YearOne but they're out of them and won't have them in for 5 or 6 months. You really need the moldings before
     doing this step. When you get the moldings, you will need to heat the corners up a little with a heat gun and change the radius slightly to match the vega glass opening. If you have the moldings, just figure out where they align with the retainers and tack the retainers in place.The option to this is to have the trim shop simply glue the headliner in place and use some of the headliner material and glue it to the bottom edge of the plug and simply run it under the rear package tray. It will look fine and cost quite a bit less than the moldings.
10. Reinstall the plug and locate it with the screws that you installed earlier and weld the plug in solid.
11. Place a piece of steel (I used a piece left over from the bottom edge of the vega plug) at the top covering the two inch opening.
     Secure it into place. I used a self drilling sheet metal screw on each end and three large welding magnets to hold it down flat. From
     the inside of the car, spray paint the back side of the piece of steel to mark it to know where to cut it for the best fit. Remove the
     piece, turn it over and trim it using the edge of  the painted area as a guide. It should now fit in the opening. I used three of those
     triangular magnets to hold it into place while I  tacked it into place. I removed the magnets and finished welding it up.
12. You will need to use filler to blend the plug to the body. I always use JB Weld first on the welded areas since it will not shrink

Hope this helps.

[Howie]

    You da man 

[daytonalo]

Have you test fit glass with mouldings to insure the plug did not distort , as you know I used a different method . It just my two cents , but would spend the time to test fit to insure no surprises . Larry

[hotrod98]

I haven't checked the glass fit yet. But, when I set it in place, it aligned up with the sail panels without having to pull it down against the body. I left part of the reinforcement around the glass area which stiffened it up quite a bit.

[BigBlockSam]

thanks Larry, i just printed that up and put it in my Daytona paper file.   

did you make those wing wshers Daytonalo?

[hotrod98]

Here's what it looked like on Howie's car when installed the way that I explained above. After fitting it this way, I decided to go ahead and recess it down flush with the edge of the opening to reduce the amount of filler needed, but it was a lot more difficult to weld. It's a lot easier to weld the plug in with the one inch lip on either side. You're not talking about all that much filler really. Remember, the plug is pretty thin without the reinforcement attached.
From now on, I'll recess the front trunk drip rail the thickness of the plug to reduce the total thickness in that area.
The second pic shows the filler piece tacked in at at the top.

[Gary42]

Now you all know why I like living right down the street from him, he's my hero  .

[hotrod98]

He's only saying that because he's been buying parts to build a clone. 

[daytonalo]

I'm confused , did you or didn't you overlap the Vega flange on top of sail panels ?

[hotrod98]

I originally overlapped it and then got real brave and decided to install it flush with the sail panels. I think that for a beginner, overlapping it makes it much easier to weld. When you recess it flush with the sail panels it looks more like a factory install, but it's so much harder to weld. I'll probably weld mine in flush when that day comes. I really learned a lot working on Howard's car. Now I have to get started on his nose and headlamps and hopefully make the molds using his parts. The guy that bought my hemi car picked it up yesterday and Howard picked his clone up today. I now have more room in both shops for more projects.

[Howie]

I changed the angle of the stabilizer for uplift and gained 5mpg on the road towing it home

[hotrod98]

 

[daytonalo]

As you know I overlapped leaving a 1 inch flange , then welded it and tapped it down and then used long strand filler . Didn't the factory plug overlap , On wing car fab it looks to me that it overlapped and spot welded . So what your telling me is the factory welded the plug to the existing edge of window pinch-weld area ? You have me confused , could be that short bus thing !!!!!!!! Larry O

[hotrod98]

Larry, I don't have a clue as to how the factory welded the original plugs in. I wasn't there when they built them and besides, I was only 13 years old at the time.

I just meant that it has a more of an original look to it when you're not having to build the sides of the sail panels up with body filler material.
I think that when I do my car, I'll recess the front drip rail the thickness of the plug material and bring the plug all of the way to the opening like you did with yours. Then by installing the plug flush with the sail panel opening and installing the filler panel at the top flush, there will be very little body filler anywhere.

[hotrod98]

This is how Pat Kaniuga installed his vega plug a few years ago. His method is similar to the way that I did Howard's except that I left the lower area of the vega plug intact. Notice he installed it flush with the sail panels and didn't overlap it. This is where I first got the idea of doing Howard's that way. The one thing that I did do to take the strain off of those thin welds along the sail panel is to weld the back side of the plug to the inner sail panel as well.

[hemigeno]

One of the tricks Creative used in the installation of the original window plugs was to weld in a pretty long length of (roughly) 1/2" x 1/2" light gauge angle along the inside surface of the sail panel.  That created a "ledge" which held the plug in place while they sloppily buzzed down the created butt joint with the welder.  I'm sure they had a jig of some sort to locate the clip so that it all planed out fairly well.

Here is a picture that shows that length of angle:



And another picture which shows the end of the clip angle, some of the buttwelds, and gobs of lead filler that leaked between the plug and the sail panel: