When planning the work on the ’51 I knew that I wanted to pancake the roof.  This is because of the “turret top” style roof.  The story is that the old vehicles had tall roofs so that men could drive them with their hats on.  I don’t know if there is any truth to that story.  I do know that the high roof crown makes the truck look top heavy; this look is accentuated as the glass area is reduced when chopping the top.

 When I built the concept scale model of the truck I had a great deal of difficulty with getting the roof to look right.  I tried to blame the problem on the out of scale thickness of the plastic model.  In my heart of hearts I knew better and the result was that I entered the roof modification phase with some trepidation.

When I cut the roof apart for the top chop I knew that the roof area would grow lengthwise and so I cut a large “sun roof” area out of the middle.  I also was planning for the increased roof area brought on by streching the cab four inches.  The entire roof is some 5  1/4″ longer that stock through the middle above the doors.  Interestingly I lost about four inches of roof length when I took out the two piece windshield and replaced it with the curved windshield.  The resulting roof is only about 1  1/2″ longer overall; due mostly to the top chop.

I also had to deal with the additional metal that needed to be inserted due to widening the front of the cab 6  1/2″.

My plan was to use the original cab for about 8″ into the roof and then cut a panel from the spare cab roof that was large enough to fill the remaining hole.

There also was the little issue of the holes in the roof edge caused by streching the cab.  I cut patch panels from the original roof skin that was left over from the “sun roof”.

 The side pieces were pretty straight forward in that all I needed to do was run the patch panels through the slip roller until the curve matched the roof and then weld the parts in.

The center fill piece turned out to be more challenging in that it needed a bit of a compound curve to transition from the right side to the left side.  Remembering what I had seen demonstrated in the metal working seminar that I attended a couple of years ago I determined that hammer stretching would get the job done.

After finding my anvil (it had hidden it’s self) I commenced pounding on the center of the patch panel.  I had carefully laid out a grid to use as a guide and didn’t pound too hard.  Nothing happened.  Then I started pounding between the grid marks.  Then I started wailing the living daylights out of the part.  That actually worked pretty good; well enough in fact that the patch panel fit on the first try.  I didn’t even put any extraneous dents in the panel.  My very first on purpose compound curve.

In order to reduce the roof crown I simply rolled the roof edges down until the roof thickness looked right.  This turned out to lower the roof (pancake it) around 1  1/2″.  I had to cut slits in the cab corners in order for them to make the compound curve at the corner of the roof.

 Eventually I had a continuous ring of roof that was about 8″ wide.

At this point things started to get interesting.  The first thing was that the top of the windshield opening is an arch that matches the cowl arch.  The back window has no arch.  The factory roof follows the shape of the back window and so the roof is essentially flat across the front with a cut out for the windshield.  I have looked at literally hundreds of these trucks and never noticed that before.  To my eye it made the front edges of the roof look like they had shoulders.  Or a little like Frankenstein’s forehead.  I took pictures of the front of the roof from every angle and cannot see the bumps in the pictures.

Naturally once I saw it I couldn’t see anything else.  So I cut the roof corners apart and took another stab at it.  And another and another etc.  I realized where the project was going when I lost track of how many times that I had cut the corners loose, moved them around and then welded them back together.

I eventually got one side looking pretty decent and so moved to the other side.  When I got that side done it was so much better that I had to go back to the first side and redo it.  Rinse and repeat, I heard somone say.  I made several rounds with that.  Practice may not make perfect but it sure improves the situation.

Now I have a problem; the front of the roof has an arch and the back of the roof doesn’t.  This is going to result in the roof skin having to make the transition; very scary stuff for an amateur metal person.  Added to this is that I am wanting to put some sort of third brake light in the back of the roof.

In order to see if the roof skin is even possible I made a test model out of heavy paper.  I arched the paper and taped it to the kitchen
counter.  The arch simulated the front of the roof.  Then I cut a series of slits in the back of the paper and taped it down.  In theory this will work.

Meanwhile back at the junkyard I am looking for some sort of scoop to put into the back of the roof to put the brake light into.  After finding and rejecting several candidates I found a ’62 Ford Falcon hood.  It had the fake scoop that I wanted for the brake light and the scoop was fared into the hood making the transition that I needed between the arched front and the flat back.  How cool is that?  The hood was also big enough to cover the roof without any additional patch panels.  Hopfully the Ford restoration crew won’t come after me with pitchforks and torches.

After getting the hood home I proceeded to skin it.  I used my grinder to cut the skin where it was folded and spot welded around the edges; very similar to a door skin.  After getting it cut away all the way around I found that the putty that the factory put between the frame and the skin was holding the skin on solidly.  I was afraid to pry too hard on the skin for fear of damaging it so I got out the propane torch and heated up the putty spots.  This worked amazingly well as it only took a few seconds for the putty to pop loose.  I didn’t even scorch the paint.

The skin is really floppy and loose at this point and so I just set it on the top of the cab to see where I needed to trim to make the parts match.  After trimming I adjusted the cab edges to meet the new skin all the way around without any pressure on the skin.  I figure that there will be enough stress on the skin due to welding and I don’t want to add any additional stress.

I found that the Falcon skin is made of thinner sheet metal than the ’51; no real surprise I guess.  My initial plan was to butt weld the parts together like I have with the rest of the truck.  Finding the dirrerence in thickness resulted in a change of plan.  When I had trimmed the opening I had left about 1/2″ overlap around the edge.  I simply laid the new skin on that overlap and tack welded it down.  I expect that I will be able to blend the welds down and then use filler to smooth the transition.

After looking at the photos that I took when cutting the roof off I found that it has been a little over two years since the truck has had a roof.  Time flies when you are having fun, I guess.

So now I have several yards of finish welding to do.  After that I will have to decide what part needs to be done next.

Norm

Side streets:

I changed jobs, again.  In the process I reduced my commute by 80% and I am hoping that the reduction in driving time will equal more time in the garage.

The spare engine was removed from one of the Miatas after the great overheat incident on the way home from the Street Rod Nationals a couple of years ago.  I figured that I could repair/rebuild that engine with a minimum of fuss and then put it back into the car that it came out of.

I had recently had the cam cover on one of the Miatas powder coated.  I t looked so nice that I decided to have the cam cover and intake manifold for the engine I am rebuilding done.  Hey, if it don’t run at least it will look good.

I expected that the head gasket had blown when the engine over heated.  This suspicion was brought on by the number three cylinder doing the Old Faithful thing when I took out the spark plugs.

On disassembly I discovered that the head gasket was still good!  Score one for me!  Then I discovered that the head had cracked in order to save the head gasket, bummer.

While I had the head off I took the opportunity to check the ignition timing mark.  It turns out that there are two marks on the crank pulley that are ten degrees apart. 

Naturally I had the wrong one marked.  These marks are very difficult to see when the engine is installed in the car and so to give me the best chance of actually identifying where the ignition timing was set I painted the timing marks on the cover. 

Then I used a hacksaw to cut the correct (0 degree) timing mark on the crank pulley as deep as I dared.  I’m hoping that the mark will be sorta visible in the car.

There is an outfit in Texas that I found on the internet that does mail order heads.  It’s pretty slick in that they ship the rebuilt head, and then the customer puts the core head back into the box and ships it back.  They include the shipping label and pay the UPS.   They are even reasonable in the cost department.

Since I can’t leave well enough alone and since the head didn’t require any other work I decided to make the cam timing adjustable.  The Miata engine is of the dual overhead cam type with one cam for the exhaust and one cam for the intake.  By altering the individual cam timing I can change the RPM where the peak torque occurs.

Of course before changing things it is a good idea to find out where one is.  I spent a couple of quality days trying to measure the cam events on the engine.  The problem is that with the cam being installed above the valves there is no realistic way to get a dial indicator onto the valve stem.

Eventually I figured out that by putting air pressure on the intake or exhaust port and observing the air pressure I could determine where in relation to the crankshaft the valves were opening and closing.  I was quite pleased with my clever invention.  Shortly after spending the better part of a week learning the intricacies of Miata cam timing I discovered the stock cam specs are listed in my workshop manual. 

At least I verified that my readings were correct.

In order to make the cam position variable in relation to the crank I wanted to use the old school trick of installing a cam drive bushing with an offset drive hole.  It was at this point that I discovered that no one in Miataville adjusts the cam timing with offset cam bushings.  I also discovered that my old Chevy and Mopar bushings would not fit.

And so like the Grinch I decided to make one instead.

I figured that it would be a pleasant afternoon project.  I was wrong twice. 

I did learn a bunch about tool flex, that 7/16” bolt shanks that are not actually 7/16” in diameter, that my mill occasionally skips steps and that my new mill control pendent can cause the mill to run away.  A lotta learning went on I want to tell ya. 

Oh yes, before I forget, I also discovered that with a CNC mill it is possible to crash the project with a typographical error.  Yes Virginia, -1 is not the same as -.1 as I discovered to the detriment of the part, the end mill and most especially the mill Jacobs’ chuck.

Eventually I was able to make a set of cam timing bushings.  I needed two of each because I have two cams.  I made a pair of zero degree bushings in case I need to return to stock timing.  I also made a pair of 2 degree, three degree and four degree bushings.  Please don’t ask about the one degree bushings; I’d just lie. 

The lines that are scored into the face of the bushings indicate the number of degrees of offset.  I didn’t want to have to measure them when trying to change them.  One of the score marks also indicates the direction of the offset.  The machine screw is a convenient place to store the spare bushings so that I can lose all of them at once.  Sorry about the poor photo quality.  I’d blame it on the camera but some of us know better.

The bushings are threaded in the drive hole so that a screw can be used to push the bushing out of the cam pulley.   The screw also makes a nice handle so that it is somewhat less likely to drop the bushing and have it disappear. 

Since the cam drive pin rides on the threads I picked a screw size that was small enough that the internal thread in the cam bushing is very shallow thus leaving a “flat top” between the threads for the cam drive pin to push on.  Shallow threads are not recommended for anything that has axial force on it. Since the only thing these threads will be doing is pulling the cam bushing out I figured that I was safe.

After making the bushings I needed a place to install them.  The Miata cam pulleys have a center hole for the retaining bolt and a pair of milled slots for the cam drive pins to ride in.  The reason that there are two slots is so that the pulley can be exchanged between the intake and the exhaust cams.

I needed to make one of the slots wide enough for the offset drive bushings to fit into. 

It was during this simple operation that the typographical error occurred.  Fortunately the damage to the cam pulley was cosmetic in nature and the end mill was salvageable. 

The Jacobs’ chuck was toast.  I was lucky enough to find a NOS (from the ‘50s or ‘60s) rebuild kit for the chuck!  Now I know how to rebuild a Jacobs’ chuck.

The next part of the project was to cut clearance reliefs for the cam bolts into the newly powder coated cam cover.  I am trying to make it possible to change the cam timing while dismantling the minimum number of parts on the engine.

I practiced changing the cam timing with the head off of the engine and a clothes pin standing in for the crank pulley.  

So here is the drill to change the cam timing: 1) remove the cam center bolt.  2) Use the jacking screw to pull out the cam bushing.  3) Install the new bushing.  4) Replace the cam center bolt.

The stock cam timing has 20 degrees overlap between the intake and exhaust.  I advanced the exhaust two degrees and retarded the intake two degrees resulting in 16 degrees overlap.  This is similar to the old “RV” or “economy” cam grinds.

Next up was to raise the compression.  I measured the combustion chamber and swept volume and found the static compression ratio to be 9.2:1.  The factory claims 9.5:1; all of the Detroit engines that I have measured were down by .5 so being only .3 low is an improvement.

The replacement cylinder head had been surfaced and that brought the compression ratio up to 9.6:1; still not high enough, sonny Jim!

decking Miata block

I put the block on the mill and sliced off 0.020”.  After the cam bushing fiasco I expected trouble but the machining gods were smiling and I managed the cut in one evening with only minor problems.

The 0.020” block deck job brings the pistons up to zero deck height and gets the compression up to 10.5:1; just what I was aiming for.  I don’t know why Mazda put the pistons 0.020” down the hole but it gave me room to work.

I’m pretty sure that there is still adequate clearance between the valves and pistons.  I’m not sure whether to check before assembling the engine or to gamble that there won’t be a strange and fatal noise in the engine.  What do you think a reasonable person should do?

Since I was already this far I went ahead and gasket matched the ports.  That went pretty well until I looked down the exhaust ports.  They have some problems with the way the valve seat machining was done in the bowl area of the ports.  The machining leaves various lumps and bumps that could be smoothed out.  If you look closley the problem is visible in the photo.  Like the reasonable person that I am I pretended not to see the problem.

Visible in the photo are the slots that I cut in the exhaust manifold mounting studs.  I have a set of headers on this car that require the studs to be removed in order to install the headers.  I cut slots into the ends of the studs so that the studs can be removed and replaced with a screwdriver.

All (?) that is left to do is reassemble the engine and install it.  Wish me luck.

Norm

Side streets

78% of my grandkids were visiting this weekend.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matthew 6:21

I have spent the last several months working at work, a novel concept. 

I work at a power plant where the newest unit was built in 1959.  It seems strange to work on something that is almost as old as I am especially considering that it is in better shape.

Both of the coal fired units were taken off line for maintenance.  We did them one at a time to avoid turning out the lights.  Since I am the only I & C technician working here I got to learn a lot about the units.  I have been working at these plants for a little under a year so the outage was a real learning experience for me.  I now know what  to avoid.

During the outage I worked ten hours a day seven days a week.  Then I had an hour plus commute each way.  That left only enough time to band aid any emergencies that came by at home.  It’s a good thing that I have several cars available to drive since I now have several partly broken ones that are cluttering up the side yard.

Becky and I did find time to buy her a “new to us” car.  It is a ’07 Dodge Magnum R/T.  I keep telling people that we bought grandma a used station wagon.

After the outage I got to deal with all of the things at home that didn’t get done while I was away.  At some point I will either be done or dead.  I’m hoping that the ’51 gets some work progress, too.

Enough belly aching.  Here are a few pictures that I took at the plant. 

At one time Canon City had electric trolley cars that used 30 cycle power.  This building was used to distribute and control that power.

Some of the equipment and tools are still in the now decommissioned plant.  I don’t know when it was shutdown but it was sometime in the 1940s.

The building associated with this cornerstone is still in use and currently houses the turbine of the unit that was commissioned in 1959.  There was an even older power plant located on the site but the only remains of it are some retaining walls and stubs of the wrought iron support beams.

There are two operating power plants on the site.  One was commissioned in 1955 and the other in 1959.  They both have stoker coal fired boilers.  Both are scheduled to be shutdown at the end of 2013 due to the Governors’ “clean energy, clean jobs” initiative. 

 But for now the plant continues to generate power; like it has for the last sixty years.

One of my jobs is to take care of the emissions monitoring equipment that is located on the stacks.  Since there are no elevators on the stacks I get to count the ladder rungs on the way up.  I’m always thankful that I could do it one more time.  It actually isn’t all that bad since the instrument platforms are only about 100 feet up.

The bonus is that, weather permitting, the view from the stack is really nice. 

 The old penitentiary is directly across the high way from the plant.  If I am ever thinking that my job is no fun all I have to do is look over there and realize that things could be a lot worse.  The penitentiary is about the only thing in the area that is as old as the power plant. 

I also get to work at the Pueblo Power Plant.  The three units were commissioned in 1922, 1941 and 1949.  Units 41 and 49 are still nominally operational; they last ran in the summer of 2010.  We expect to operate them for a few days this summer and then they will also be decommissioned. 

 I particularly appreciated the manufacturer letting me know that I shouldn’t use the turbine to power an airplane. 

The machine in the background is a reciprocating steam engine driving the condenser vacuum pump.  There is now an electric motor driven vacuum pump so the steam driven pump is no longer used.  I’d love to see it run. 

The Pueblo plant was built during the heyday of the steam locomotive and so some of the then current technology made its way into the power plant.  This is the plant air compressor, lifted from a steam locomotive. 

 The switchgear looks like something out of an old horror movie.  The truly scary part is that it is still energized and in use.  

The electric system in the Pueblo plant ranges from the exposed knife switch type to modern computer controls.  A person has gotta know what they are about to work on the equipment there. 

 Every time that I go exploring the Pueblo plant I find more interesting stuff.

I hope that you have enjoyed this non automotive post.  Maybe next time I’ll tell you about the ghost that haunts the plant.

Norm

Side streets:

My second son joined the Army.  He said that he felt that unless he was willing to serve he didn’t deserve the benefits of living in this country.  I am proud of my son.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.    III John 1:4

At our house we have a little saying when the project won’t allow you to do what is planned.  It goes something like “well, what can you do?” 

Since there are a bunch of things that need to be done to get the truck roadworthy I was faced with the decision of what portion of the project to tackle while the corner glass project quietly simmered in the background.  I figured that since I was working on the upper works of the truck I would stay in the area and do the leading edge of the roof.  

I knew what I wanted to do with the metal but I was having difficulty in describing it.  Whenever I talked to someone about it I would say things like “the part above the windshield.”  Apparently that part of the vehicle doesn’t have an official name.  

The result of not having a name for the part resulted in causing whatever audience that I had at the time to stop listening.  It’s very distracting when your audience is obvious about their lack of interest.  At least on a blog post I don’t have to put up with the “when are you going to be done?” look.  

I came to the conclusion that what was needed was a catchy name.  One that fit the style of the part, kinda edgy but not risqué.  I gotta say at this point that naming a car part is not an easy task.  Now I understand why the people in the glass towers that work for advertising agencies get paid so much.  

After rejecting any title that contained the word “thingy” I came to the conclusion that the part needed a one-word title.  The reasoning was that I have a short attention span and an even shorter memory and in order for this to work I would have to remember the title.  

In the process of the name search I reviewed what other car parts were named and found that many of them were named after biological body parts…. Fender lip, headlight eyebrow, fin, gill, wing, etc.  This helped reduce the field of potential candidates considerably. 

Eventually I concluded that the animated feature “Cars” had it right, the front of a car (or truck) is like a face.  The whole reason I want to modify the as yet unnamed area above the windshield is that on the advance design trucks it looks like a head on view of a balding gentleman.  I wear a hat most of the time to avoid that look. I figured that putting a hat on the truck was not a practical plan.  

So if the windshield contains the eyes (small, squinty and slightly evil on the ’51) and the roof is the forehead then the area between must be the eyebrow. 

 Since the headlight frame already takes that title I had to come up with something else. After many, well OK some, sleepless nights considering this dilemma I realized that there was only one brow above the windshield and thus the name was revealed ….The Unibrow!  

The Unibrow was an option on the later General Motors advance design trucks.  Most of them were sold in South America.  The idea behind the Unibrow was for it to act as an oversize drip rail to keep the torrential rain in the tropics off of the windshield.  It was so successful that it became standard equipment on the ’55 trucks.  

Okay, I have a part and a name and a story, it’s time to get to work. 

Since the windshield posts had been sliced during the glass fitting phase the second step (naming the unibrow being the first) was to weld up the slots.  

While cleaning up the metal in preparation to weld I discovered an area of the windshield post filled with lead. After using a Mapp gas torch to remove the lead I discovered that the windshield post was only welded about half way across and then lead filler was thickly applied.  This left a gap where the weld wasn’t.  That gap was filled with lead.  

Since lead is not intended to provide structural support the windshield post was considerably weakened.  Not a good situation in my opinion.  

Since this was a factory joint and weld I suspected that the other side of the windshield would have a similar problem so I cleaned it up to take a look.  Interestingly, to me anyway, this side was fully welded.  Apparently two different people did the welding and one took the time to do a better job.  

After repairing and finishing the windshield posts work started on the leading edge of the roof, AKA the unibrow.  

There is a revel above the glass opening that has a small horizontal place on it that is an ideal spot to slice the roof away from the windshield opening. The sliced revel leaves a small lip on either side to weld the filler pieces to.  

After getting the roof cut away I was able to adjust the leading edge away from the windshield opening to the place where I wanted it.  I also filled the cab-widening gap with a piece from the spare parts cab. 

The result was what resembled a wire form model on a computer graphic.   I spent a great deal of time adjusting the edge and then standing back and checking it for level and symmetry.  I have tried putting in parts (and paint stripes) using my trusty “tape liar” and have found through bitter experience that even if it measures perfectly it may not look “right”.  Or even straight and level.

 I also didn’t full weld anything until I had come back the next day and reexamined the part.  If the part still looked OK after the second inspection I welded it. 

Knowing that leaving openings in the cab would result in rain, snow and small birds getting into the truck at inopportune moments I made filler pieces to bridge the gap. 

I was surprised at how difficult making those pieces turned out to be.  All of the other parts on the truck are either modified originals where I was making the part smaller or filler parts from the spare parts cab.  These fabricated filler pieces are the first parts on the truck that I have made from scratch.  It seemed to require a lot of time to get them shaped just right before they could be welded in.  The fact that gravity is still working in my garage didn’t help any because the pieces kept falling out onto my messy floor.  Sometimes it was hard to find the piece that I had dropped because of all the leftover pieces that are cluttering up the floor.  But I digress. 

After getting the filler pieces all tacked in I full welded them from the backside.  This greatly reduced the amount of weld clean up that was needed. 

So the unibrow is done.  It is similar to the mini sun visors that the factory put on many trucks in the fifties.  My design goal for the appearance of the truck is to make it look like an original truck with a top chop.  If the unibrow and roof shape turn out like I want them to they should be unnoticeable to anyone not familiar with what the GM advance design truck roof looked like. 

Norm 

Side streets: 

I am a grandpa, again.  Lilian Marie arrived on November 23 she is our fourteenth grandchild in a continuing series.

Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them      Psalm 127:5

 The glass is cut from a ’91 Dodge ram van windshield of the full size variety.  I picked this windshield for several reasons.  The biggest reason was that it was available.

 Actually I spent a couple of hours wandering around the used auto parts emporium with a tape measure looking for a windshield that was big enough and had enough curve to look right.  I also wanted one that wasn’t cracked, picky person that I am.

 In order to transfer the shape of the windshield opening accurately I made a wooden windshield for a pattern.  I carefully marked the pattern so that I could tell which way was up and which was the front.

The pattern was clamped into the curved opening and then I used spray paint to mark the position of the windshield flange onto the inner side of the pattern.

Knowing that the wood would try to return to its flat state when the clamps were removed I made braces and installed them on the front of the pattern.  The braces were made from the left over patterns that I had made to create the windshield opening.

At this point I realized that the wood or glass windshield would be mounted in a rubber gasket and that would likely result in the glass being a slightly different size than the windshield flange. 

 This realization resulted in a scramble to see what windshield gaskets I had on hand and which would work best on the ’51.  I have several from the school bus windshield adventure but they are not long enough to do the whole one-piece windshield thing.  The gasket from the dodge van got cut up while I was taking the windshield glass out.  This left me with the gasket from a mid ‘80s Chevy truck.  It is plenty long and has a rubber “zipper” to make putting the glass in easier.

After determining that I had enough windshield gasket I used my PVC pipe cutter to cut several small pieces of gasket.  These pieces were then used to support the windshield pattern.  With only the small pieces of gasket installed I was able to eyeball the flange to windshield fit and make the inevitable adjustments.

I then took the pattern and placed it onto the glass to check to see if the flange curve matched the glass curve.  I was not surprised to find that there was a difference in the curves.  If it had been right on the first try I would have been suspicious.

A careful inspection revealed that the upper windshield flange braces that were supposed to hold the flange in the proper position were in fact holding the flange in the wrong position.  The solution was to cut the braces and after getting the flange where it belonged clamping the braces together.  I intend to leave the braces clamped until the windshield fitting is completed and only when everything is OK will I reweld the clamps.

Now that the windshield flange and the windshield glass are the same shape it is time to make the glass the correct size.  I traced the outline of the pattern onto the glass. 

 I had a hard time finding anything that would mark the glass.  It seemed that everything I tried would mark for a little way and then fade out or rub off.  I tried sharpie markers and even the grand kids Crayolas. 

 Eventually I discovered that a paint marking pen like what they use at the junkyard to mark parts worked pretty well.  You probably don’t want to know why I have a set of junkyard marking pens.

During my practice glass cutting I found that I have a tendency to try to push through to finish the cut.  This usually results in cracking the glass.  When I marked the cut lines on the glass I made a mark every four inches where I would stop, remove the cutter, cool the glass and take a break.  If I took a break the hope was that the glass wouldn’t.

 I “accidentally” acquired another used windshield and used it to warm up on before cutting the windshield for the ’51.  The “accidentally” part involved my wife’s truck and a rock.

 The van windshield was a lot longer than the support table that I had made and I was worried the stress on the glass would cause it to crack.  So I gathered up some junk from around the garage and made a support for the overhanging glass.  The only problem was I pushed up on the glass and stressed it in the other direction.  This stress caused the glass to crack while I was cutting it.  It also made the cracks run into the waste area of the glass.  It was unintentional but it worked out pretty well.

I didn’t take any pictures of the cutting process because I was in a nervous tizzy.  I was really glad when I managed to cut the entire windshield out with only minor problems.  Apparently what I learned in the “Cutting Class” post worked.

 The only real problem that I had was a series of small cracks along the bottom edge.  I suspect that they are the result of the concave shape of the lower glass.  The cracks were small enough that most of them were removed when I did the finish shaping on the bottom of the windshield.  The few that remained got treated to me drilling crack stop holes at their ends.  All of the cracks and holes are close enough to the edge that the windshield gasket will cover them.

 Then it was time for the final fit.  I installed the glass with the gasket pieces holding it in place.  The windshield glass is slightly different in shape than the flange (no surprise there) but I was able to adjust the flange to fit without much trouble.

Now that I am a curved safety glass cutting expert I am going to attempt to cut down the corner windows.  I hope that goes well, if not you will most likely be able to hear the screaming from where you are.

Side street:

My dog died.  She was 98 in dog years, truly a grand old lady.  In her younger years she would fetch tools for me and although I was never able to teach her the difference between a 1/2″ and a 9/16″ end wrench; if I pointed to a tool she would get it for me.  RIP Jaz.