Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: boatingbill on November 01, 2011, 01:23:02 PM
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I remember reading on this forum about window glass guides (cat whiskers) being bought at
JCWhitney by club members. They have 19 different styles. Has anyone bought these for the 51-55
Kaiser door glass? If so, what style works best?
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Why bother with Whitney when you can get first quality parts from the folks at Restoration Specialties. I know the boys who run this outfit and everything I've bought from them fits. Their owner knows KF.
http://www.restorationspecialties.com/
They have an online catalog.
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Joe: you're right, their prices are very close. Looks like a good source.
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Does anyone know if installing the door glass guides (cat whiskers) requires any special tools? Mine
are so far gone, it's hard to tell what what was there originally.
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The cats whiskers mount to the doors using two different methods. On the upper aluminum frames, there are clips that snap into slots in the frame. Rest Specialties (RS) will have these. To attach new whiskers to the stainless outer trim, you will need to remove the trim from the door to do it right. There are three attaching points and one of them is in the middle of the trim...so the door glass has to come out. The whiskers are attached to the stainless using staples. The good news is that they're a standard size and RS has these too. I just reused the holes in the stainless and drove a new staple thru the whiskers and bent the staple over with pliers. Once you have a door apart, you'll see how it's set up. It's not a difficult job...just time consuming.
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Thanks Joe, I am calling today to order the items you mentioned. Info like this is important as the
'51 shop manual doesn't mention this at all.
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Document what you are doing. I know several of us would love to benefit from your experiences here.
I have to do the Whisker replacement this winter as well.
Pictures if you can would be great.
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I'm at the same point in having a whisker replacement scheduled for the cold season. I picked up the strips from Resto at Iola this summer. I have some of the clips as NOS, but need to get more from Resto. Question- when I look at the old strips, the two tangs from the clips are neatly folded around the slots in the steel inside the covering. This doesn't happen when one simply presses in a new one-is this also a matter of just squeezing with a pliers (which seems it wouldn't really do the same thing) or is there some other tool involved?
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Joe: With the window in the up position, the outside cat whisker that presses against the glass is
stapled to the stainless trim. This is where I think you reuse the old staple holes and bend the new
staple in place with a pliers. My question is how do you get a pliers inside the stainless trim to bend the staple? Do you remove the stainless from the door and if so how is that done?
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Can you please let us know the part numbers from Resto for the whiskers and the clips? I need to order some too! Thanks!
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Hello;
I just recently completed replacing ALL the weatherstripping/cat whiskers on my 1952 Kaiser Manhattan......... I am a silversmith by profession and have been doing bench work for years. In the past I have done the same job on a 1951 Studebaker, and the Kaiser weatherstripping is more complicated (more pieces) and considerably more difficult to install in my opinion. Door panels, window mouldings and all window glass need to be removed. Outside stainless steel mouldings/trim also needs to be removed.
The Kaiser system is quite good when finished and installed. Instead of a 1-piece "U"-channel where glass meets door frame there are 3-separate pieces, with exception of the vent window division bar (Channel). I used all the 'old' pieces as templets and examples for ordering and fabricating the new replacements. The cat-whiskers down inside the door have a different 'system' for installation........with a special clip that is riveted to the weather stripping, and hooks into place and a snap-in clip at the bottom. It pays to be observant when disassembling, this will aid reassembly.
I found removing the original staples from weatherstripping on stainless steel trim not easy (very heavy staples), I used a small cut-off wheel. Installing new replacement(s) wasn't easy either with limited space to close new staple ends........ The factory must have had a great staple gun for this operation! The weatherstrips on interior mouldings use a snap-in clip, I had to use a sharp tool to sometimes make holes for clips to locate, then hammered down pointed ends to secure. I used Restoration Specialties in Windber, Penn. for my supplies.
Dave F. #10113
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Hey Dave will you come to Yakima and do Mine!!
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Dave, any chance you have the part numbers you used from Resto? Thanks, Mike
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After discussing this today with restorationspecialties.com this is what we came up with. The belting is
item M123 and the U channel is item 8L. This is Kaiser 51-55 items. They also have the staples to
faster the belting to the door. What they don't have is the spring clips that fasten the belting to the
inside window metal garnish trim. This is the metal trim piece that has the hole for the door lock knob.
They are going to send me spring clip item 2182 to see if it will work on Kaisers. I had some very
tiny screws that hold the outside stainless trim on that are badly rusted. I had to use a adjustable
pliers from inside the door to back the screws out as the phillips heads were solid rust. I will try to
find those at a hardware locally. I'll let everyone know if the spring clips they send work.
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The staples provided by RS are thicker than the Kaiser originals. I had to drill out the old staple holes
with a 1/16th drill bit to get the new stapes through the trim. Upon removing the SS trim at the midpoint of the door where it meets the start of the window, I found extensive rust under the SS trim.
Just FYI for those contemplating this project. Those staples are hard to bend in order to pull them into
the "cat whiskers" deep enough to hide and not rub against the glass.
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Dear Boating Bill;
I found the same problem with the staples being too heavy a gauge from Restoration Specialties.........
I wound up using regular staples from my staple gun.
Dave F. #10113
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It sounds like the folks at RS are using a different staple than in years past. About 3 years ago I completely replaced all of the whiskers on a 54 and they had the correct staples at that time. The trick to getting them deep enough into the whisker so that they don't scratch the glass is to spread the nap a bit with your fingers and then insert the staple. Having been a carpet installer for several years and working with close nap Wilton wool carpet, I borrowed that trick and it worked.
And, you will need to reuse as many of the clips for the inner upper door garnish molding as you can. RS didn't have any at that time and as dumb luck, I had a jar of NOS to fall back on.
The job is not easy, but can be tackled by anyone with patience.
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Well, I completed the rear door channels and "cat whiskers", but I can't seem to be able to remove
the front door vent assembly on my '51 Kaiser. I have removed all the screws on the vent wing and
yet there is not enough movement to remove it from the door. I don't want to crack either glass, so
is there a trick to get all the glass out? There rear door glass removed easily.
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To remove the vent glass and frame, you need to remove the door glass first. Lower the window and reach thru the door opening and remove the clips that hold the glass to the actuator mechanism. Once the glass is out of the door, you can then remove the frame. Installation is the reverse.
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Joe: I removed the glass clip and tried to move the glass up and out by hand, but there is still not
enough room. I tried to rotate the glass 90 degrees, but there was not enough play in the
channels to do that. I tried to slip the glass out of the channels, but again not enough play to do
that either. Did you unbolt the channel at the lock mechanism for more play? How do you get the
vent wing channel out of the way? I have all the screws out of the wing channel and the glass
clip out of the window regulator. It should not be this difficult. What am I missing?
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Hmmm-can't find a 2182 in the 2011 Resto Spec catalog, but they have a 2348 that appears to me to be identical to the Kaiser ones. Supposedly fits chrysler, Ford, and GM in the 50's. A bit surprised they didn't come up with these.
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The tag on the bag says 2348 and the other clips sent were 5978's. Neither clips will work. The
picture of the 2348 looks correct, but the picture is inverted. FYI, the screws that hold the SS trim to
the door (the trim just below the door glass outside the body) takes a #6 x 3/8 sheet metal screw.
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In which plane are the clips inverted wrt the picture? The prongs are on the same side as the clip or the little tabs are pointed the wrong way or the prongs are up closer to the tabs? Can't quite visualize-have only enough NOS and salvaged to do about half, so getting concerned I might have to fabricate about 25 from scratch. Yaarg.
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Took the old whiskers off a back door moulding and was surprised to find quite a different style of clip-a single prong and no pointed tabs to push into the whiskers. The little slightly curved tabs that go over the bead were elongated and bent farther around, digging into the back side. Easier to install for sure and seem to work the same. No clue as to why one door was different from the other 3.
Also took off the whiskers that attach to the chrome trim on the outside. Stapling looks like way too much diddling, and the nice smooth surface presented when the old ones are removed seems to cry for gluing. New cars rely on adhesive for connections of this sort, due to heroic advancements in the area. Guess I don't see any reason to go through all the contortions. Anyone have any anecdotes relevant to this approach?
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dpledger: I don't know if glue would hold over time with the rubbing of the glass up and down. If it comes loose at all, you have to take the whole door apart again. They are subject to heat, cold, and moisture. The 2348 clips do not fit in the 1/4 hole in the window molding unless they are rotated 90 degrees relative to the cat whiskers and the prongs then face up away from the material, not down as they should. I too am still trying to figure out how to attach the molding to window frame as
some of my windows were missing the molding and the clips completely.
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On my 57 Chev I used small flathead SS screws to hold the door wiskers on.
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I was wrong. The 2348 clip will work from RS, but they do not hold very well. The prongs that go
into the cat whisker need to be bent over after being pushed into the material. I don't know how to do that properly without a jig. Some of my door moldings have different clips from over the years
and the one that works great, I do not see at RS. The 2348 clip is .40 at RS. I ordered several clips
and they came jammed together, and that is why I at first thought they would not work until I
realized that it was two clips!
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Dear Bill;
I also found this clip from RS worked well but required careful attachment to weather-strip.
I first 'pushed' clip on the backside of weather-strip leaving a witness/mark of 2-prongs......... Then I made small holes for clip prongs with a punch on a lead block......... Next I put a small amount of clear silicone cement on area where clip goes, I 'pushed' clip into pre-made holes and using a riveting hammer and steel block carefully hammered clip into position and finally hammered prongs down. The final result was a very secure attachment. Time consuming but results were excellent.
Dave F. #10113
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DaveF: Wow great solution! The reason this is so difficult is because RS cat whiskers use a solid
metal base for the cat whiskers. The tabs on the clip just bend when trying to push them. through.The original cat whiskers has metal as well, but it was perforated so the tabs on the clip could go through easily. It seems that after market parts usually leave something to be desired.
Your work around solution fixed a problem that RS should have seen since I used their clips and
their cat whiskers. I have completed one door so far and am not looking forward to the other
three.
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Glad to hear the RS clips work-sure looked like they would from the pic. Appreciate the data so I can now order. I tried drilling through the metal of the RS strips and elongating by moving drill up and down, This might be somewhat easier than using a punch. Excellent idea to pre make the holes.
I tried our53HJ's approach of the idea of using very small screw to attach to the trim strips-seems to work well. Thinking that 3 per strip and cement between would be an optimal combo. With all 4 doors to go this winter I wish 'twere spring.
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Dear Bill and others;
Glad I could have been a 'little' help with weatherstrip clip installation......... I like the 'punch' hole method for clip attachment......... Be careful using a drill........ Drill can 'wander' and it will get all caught-up with rubber and whisker material.
Dave F. #10113
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This thread has been super helpful, as I'm in the process of taking the doors apart and want to replace the worn out channel, whiskers and rubber.