1937-39 Willys Pickup Door Glass Installation

1938 Willys Pickup Door Glass Installation-Same for all ’37-39 Willys Pickups and most of the ’37-39 4 Door Sedan Front doors

1938 Willys Pickup Door Glass Factory Glass size is 13 15/16 x 27 11/32 inches height and width. In this installation my final piece of tinted (Solex light green) glass was 14 1/4 x 27 1/2 inches.

I began the process by buying all new window installation material from Mike Nordahl at Willys Replacement Parts. I sandblasted my rollup mechanisms and window channel pieces after removal and then painted them. I needed a replacement rewind spring for my driver’s door roll up mechanism which I bought from Mike Nordahl. They are exact matches for the Willys factory springs and easy to replace in the rollup mechanism.

In the window kit from Mike Nordahl it does not provide the weather stripping(for lack of a better term) required for the bottom of each piece of glass which needs to be glued onto the glass first, before the actual metal glass track is fitted to the bottom of your door glass.  I bought the stripping from my local auto glass shop where I bought my auto glass for this installation. Most auto glass shops will have this material. I bought enough to cover just the glass at the bottom of each piece which will eventually fit into and be glued in the window track. So measure your track lengths and make sure to buy some. The width was enough to wrap it around the bottom of the glass in the tract, probably 2 inches and 3/16 inches thick.

With the new window track material and glass wipers installed in your door and both your left and right window stops removed, I trial fitted just the glass into the door into the tracks pushing it up and down in the window tracks. With the roll up mechanisms installed the glass can sit on the two arms without your glass tracks to try this out. However this is also a good time to confirm which glass track goes on which side. In the pictures below I showed you some measurement pictures with the glass tracks fitted to the glass and marked drivers door and passenger door.

This should help you get it right but the old school way would be to just slide the tracks onto the bottom of the glass while in the door, engage the tracks in the roll up mechanism and work your roll up handle moving glass up and down and be sure you have the track on the particular window which will allow normal all the way up and all the way down positions. If in doubt, change to the other track and test it. Once you are sure, use a sharpie to mark your track accordingly so when you start gluing you get the right track onto the right piece of glass.  With this correct move forward to glue it all up..

Cut a piece of the bottom window webbing to length of the glass track. If it is kind of flat, you may want to fold it in half or around the bottom of the glass and clamp it without glue leaving it in the sun for a hour to get it to form into a wrap around shape.

Once it is so formed take your Silicone glass cement (I used Permatex Clear Adhesive Sealant Silicone RTV-2 3 ounce tubes Part # 80050) and lay a bead on the inside of the window webbing, Slide the webbing around the bottom of the glass, centering allowing an even amount of open glass on each side. You will either need some simple clamps or in my case I laid the glass with the webbing glue to it flat on a table, laid some 1 inch 6 inch pine board ontop of it with a number of heavy weights on it so it would dry and be firmly glued to the glass with out air bubbles.

 Once glued I then laid a bead of silicone down the center of the Willys Door Metal Glass track and then  stood the glass up with the bottom on top. I then placed the track over the glass bottom with the webbing already on. Using a soft mallet I taped the track onto and over the glass evenly from end to end. This is important from the glass guy. The track is to be tapped onto the glass and not the other way around…Do not push or tap the glass into the track. Once the track is in place let it dry…..I gave a day for the webbing to dry and another day on the track to dry onto the glass.

Once glued. fit the glass and track into the window opening up the tracks, make sure the window regular arms attach into the track, roll it up and reinstall both window stops.  All done.