Door Glass

[boatingbill]

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?

[joefrazer]

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.

[boatingbill]

Joe: you're right, their prices are very close. Looks like a good source.

[boatingbill]

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.

[joefrazer]

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.

[boatingbill]

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.

[pnw_oldmags]

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.

[dpledger]

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?

[boatingbill]

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?

[mbflemingkf]

Can you please let us know the part numbers from Resto for the whiskers and the clips?  I need to order some too!  Thanks!

[DaveF]

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

[pnw_oldmags]

Hey Dave will you come to Yakima and do Mine!!

[mbflemingkf]

Dave, any chance you have the part numbers you used from Resto?  Thanks, Mike

[boatingbill]

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.

[boatingbill]

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.