Prior to tackling the vent window seals and installation process, I did a ton of searches. I noticed that the topic comes up regularly, and there were a number of good pics to address specific issues, but I could not find a step by step guide with lots of pics. I’m very visual, so while I may get lost trying to follow written instructions I can easily understand pictures.

For this reason I decided to do a pic heavy posting on how I did my vent windows, and I invite all members to point out mistakes, or things that could have been done in a better way. If I got it right, it may provide fellow members with a guide that can be easily found in a search of this site. Even if I got it wrong, my errors will have been pointed out by guys who are better at this than I am. So here it goes. Remember, this is “how I did it”, not “how it should be done”!

I used the kit from Dennis Carpenter, which (with one exception) I was very impressed with.







The first thing to do is to separate the 2 sections of the frame. The top pivot gets removed:







Next the bottom jam nut gets unscrewed, allowing the fat spacer, spring, thin washer and jam nut to be removed:












There is a flat washer and a cam that sit in a tight spot:







The 2 sections of frame should be able to slide apart, but after 76 years that cam may be pretty stuck. I managed to drive some small screw drivers in between the cam and the frame to create a gap:







But in my case that cam remained stuck, so I managed to stick some needle nose pliers into the gap and use a hammer to drive the cam down and off of the shaft:













Here are the 2 sections of frame just before they separate. You can see the flat washer and the cam, and the pointed lobe of that cam points forward (faces the front of the truck) when the vent window is in the closed position:

















Now its seal time. The 2 seals are labelled left and right, and they have a thick groove that just gets pressed into the vent frame:












If (like me) you are not a spring chicken and maybe have arthritis in your hands, pushing those seals onto the frame can be tough, so the addition of some silicon lube makes all the difference in the world:







In addition to making it wonderfully easy to pop the seal into the channel, it also allows you to make some adjustments once the seal is in place. Without the silicon, I found it horribly difficult to do.

The seals have 3 holes (at least they do for a 1950 truck) that correspond to the 3 holes in the door frame where the vent window screws into place. The holes in my seals were not fully punched through the rubber, so I stuck a pick through each hole:







Here’s the seal in place, with all 3 holes lined up. The use of silicon spray made it simple to shift the seal around a bit to do this:







The seal is now in position and the frames are ready to go back together:







I wire brushed the threads and shaft, and added some lithium grease so that some future owner doesn’t have to fight seized parts:







And then started to join the sections of frame, adding the cam and washer (with cam lobe pointing to the front):







Next came the thick spacer, spring, thin washer and jam nut:







Now the top hinge/swivel or whatever you call it got installed. There is a hole and slit in the seal that this hinge pokes thru:












The screws go back in:







There is enough flex in the outer frame that it could be pulled up to get the pin to set down into the hole in the inner frame bracket:







Ready to go in!







Earlier I had mentioned that the seal kit was extremely nice, with one exception. Here it is. Compare the new hardware to the stuff I removed from my truck:







The hat shaped washers are a bit thinner (no big deal), but the screws are shorter (very big deal). The screws will work IF you have the strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger to push on them to get the threads to make contact with the door frame. The screws should be tossed into the big jar of useless random screws we all have, and new screws that are a bit longer should be used. There is all the room in the world for longer screws in the frame, so I’m not sure what the point was in supplying short screws with the kit.

I marked the location of the screw holes in the window frame of the door to make lining stuff up easier:







And then it was just a matter of screwing in the frame, using the little hat shaped washers and the new longer screws:

















When the division bar gets added it has some flexibility in its position due to the oblong mounting holes, so it can be screwed down in the spot that results in the vent window glass contacting the flexible seal lip in a nice even line:












That was about it for the vent window seal install. I did not have to rebuild or repair the latch mechanism, so unfortunately I have no pics to show how that is done.

Constructive criticism is now invited!

 

Great job on walking us through the process. The pics and your descriptions will very helpful!

Bobby

 

Wonderful tutorial! I need to sticky this somewhere so I can find it. Thanks a lot!

 

Well done!

 

Thanks guys! I was a little concerned about posting a “how to” type thread when I am no expert, but I did it after getting frustrated by my own inability to search this forum (and other forums) properly. If I’d tossed all those pics into my build thread they would vanish into the giant hole of information that exists, but is nearly impossible to find.

I may just do the same for the door window fuzzies, as I found them to be rather annoying little buggers.

 

I'd like to see that as well. Great job!

 

Great post. Wish you had this when I did mine. It was a learning curve.