Safari Window Wing Nut Bracket Fitting

 

Cleaned out the Cab bay all apart from the big black round thingy. Doesn't look too bad compared to some vans I've seen that need restoring. A fresh coat of paint should get this looking good as new. One day...

Anyway back to getting the Safari windows fitted...

Brackets from CE arrived 'rat look' so needed a blast in the blast cabinet (Open the blast doors open the blast doors)

Positioned the bracket, high enough for the windows to be horizontal but low enough so the sliders were tucked close as I could get to the frames

 Cleaned the paint up and drilled a couple of holes in the brackets

The body work of the left side was not flat so had to put a bend in the bracket so it sat better. I used the seal to get the gap to the frame correct.

 The right side welded but when you wobbled it you could tell the weld had not penetrated enough onto the frame. It snapped off with a couple of wobbles. 

So had a cunning plan to put a couple of tack welds on the frame then line up the bracket to the welds to get a better weld through the latch.

 With both sides welded I positioned the windows for the centre latch.

I tried the same trick with the centre adding a chamfer to the holes and got a much better weld. But I welded it about 1mm off centre,  

 I did have a bit of trouble getting the thicker seals to fit but there is enough flex in the latches to bend them out of the way without having to cut the seals.

Guess the moment of truth will be a trip out in the rain. 

I now have another problem to solve, the lower frame latches are too low and don't give any room for the plates to fit under. 

I tried to cut away the top curve of the outer latch plate so the latch could pass over it but I would have to cut away the bulge in the bracket that pulls the frame tight so it could pass over without fouling.

I may have to raise the mounting plate or have a go at making my own bracket to fit...

Fitting Safari Windows

I've always been a fan of Safari windows I think they give a van a cool and classic look ( no modern day car designer would be mad enough to have the front screen open to the elements and have drivers catching flies at 80 mph). 15 years ago when I picked this set of original frames up (no one was making repro's then) I'd only seen these on Sambas so when I saw a set that had been imported from the US in my local VW shop, (now long gone) I raided my piggy bank to get them. For a haggled £200 they came with the original sliders, wing nuts, washers, locks, rust but only two dash latches. The other two had been given to the shop owners mate to make repros, I never did see these as promised.

When I first pulled my windscreens out after having the van for a short time (1990s), to try and seal up the holes that let my feet get wet, I didn't realise that there was a recess stamped into the top of the window frame for safari window hinges, So 15 years later I finally get around to fitting my frames. I thought I'd start by measuring up the holes in the top hinge and make a nut plate from steel plate so I could fit M6 counter sink stainless bolts.

I spent a morning cutting drilling and welding the nuts onto one of the plates I'd made, only to realise that when I finally looked at the inside of the frame skin that it was double skinned, so there was no way a nut plate was fitting in there.

So looking on the net I did find a scanned set of original VW fitting instructions and checked out the ones on the Creative Engineering site and decided to try fitting the frames with screws. I did have a handy plate that I could now use as a drill guide, as it's not easy holding the frames and marking the holes at the same time. I didn't have short enough screws so I cut down a load of screws to fit.

With the holes marked with pencil using the drill guide I centre punched these so that the drill would not wander all over place. Once drilled with a pilot drill I checked the alignment of the holes and opened them up to the correct size for the screws, just tilting the drill where needed to get the holes squared up. This is not a bodge but a well known engineering trick.

I fitted the frame with the wood screws and tried them out. I thought they looked really crap, as the heads of the screws weren't the right shape to support the frames hinge so when moving the frames they had no support and just flapped about. I needed to come up with a better solution otherwise I'd be fitting the old (non opening) glass back in. A sceptic would suggest wood screws have no place on a VW though...

After a few days away from the garage I came up with the idea of using Riv nuts. These are like a tubed pop rivet with an internal thread. They are great for fitting a fixed nut when you can't get to the other side of a panel, but if they are not installed correctly they can sometimes spin while the bolt is still fitted making it a pain to remove the bolt. The Riv nut in the middle has not been squeezed to little so it can't grip or too much so it looses it tension but just right.

I opened up the screw holes to a tight fit for the Riv nuts making sure the holes stayed square to the frame. The Riv nut pliers take a bit of practice setting up the three adjustable nuts to get the squeeze right, I needed to measure the first few nuts to check the amount the inner threads had pulled up, so I could readjust the pliers to get the correct length and tension on the Riv nut.

With an afternoon spent drilling and riveting I finally got the frames fitted using M5 stainless allen key head counter sunk bolts. The windows sit square in the frame but I'm surprised the size of the gap around the edge of the frames.

I brought the seals from the guy selling them on the SSVC forum, they clip on around the outer frame lip very well and so far the seal contacts the Safari frame well. Before I fit the lower latches I need to fit the slider nut plates. I got a set of these from CE and was not to impressed that they came with their own rust, I prefer to rust things myself. When I fitted the butterfly nuts to the plates they also sat nowhere near the outer frame and fouled on the seal.

The center bracket had a similar problem as the side ones of not fitting the shape of the frame and fouling the seals but also being too wide to fit between both sliders.

I'll try and sort these problems later.