The Factory trimmed the door windlace on rear quarter for the brass strip, and I felt it really does not look great. I decided to just put mine right on top of the windlace and it does a couple things: 1) It shims out the brass part so less shims needed on the door piece. The windlace has metal inserts so I'm not concerned about crushing them, or strength... 2) It will prevent metal to paint contact 3) It will mark the windlaces so if I decide to go factory, their outline will be obvious for making the cuts. 4) it really does look better. And it looks like it belongs, not an afterthought... Anyway, wondering if anyone has any thoughts, and also wondering what is the number of the shims you have on your door??? Thanks Tim
I have never had/seen any shims on the brass in the door jamb on any "A" body GM convertible I have ever owned now or in the past. I own currently own 5 right now. As you know, the function of the brass is to keep the doors from possibly compressing the door jamb gap and busting the paint or worse. This could happen since there is no structural roof on a convertible, only the extra boxed frame. I just returned from outside looking at all my convertibles. If I installed my brass on the doorjamb as you describe with the windlace under the brass, my door would catch on the brass mounted on the door and not close. The door to door jamb fit is close without "shims" under the brass on all my cars. I could not install the brass on the door jamb as you describe and close the door.
Tim, How do you sleep at night. With all of these major issues to deal with?? LOL Both of my cars had at least one shim per side. JP
JP, When you live in the arctic north, you have to fill your time doing something for the 6-7 months of winter. :laugh:
Mike, my aft door gaps are less than 3/16" and there is still lots of room. I didn't say to shim the brass, just that having the windlace underneath means less shims under the door plate that matches to the brass plate. Its pretty hard to see the fit without taking doors apart, most ragtops I have seen there is a huge gap between the parts so they aren't even doing anything, and EVERY car I have seen has had shims under the door plate...but I have only seen a couple. And yeah, when you have no money left its easy for details to take over....I can still play with this stuff and not spend anything but time..... :beer later Tim
Alan, yes you can buy new door windlace but I sent mine back as I was not happy with them. There is a review on my website. Basically instead of being flat on the obvious side and having the retaining "teeth" on the backside, the repros have "teeth" on both sides so once installed they sit proud of the metal surface by about 1/8" and leave a gap.... They were nice and soft, but have that gap and don't extend as far out as GM ones. I'm pretty fussy though and I'm sure most people would be happy with them. So no shims on the door part of the wedge. Thanks! later Tim
Well, I went out to check my car for shims. It was 75 degrees out and next thing I knew I was doing 80MPH on the freeway. Felt kind of bad because the car was really dirty. Anyway, the rear tires are a little smaller. Car sure runs great. Maybe I can check for shims tomorrow. JP
Lucky *******!!!!LOL Its 30 degrees f right now here....just working on my wiring harnesses..... You going to be around late Jan?? Might be down for the barrett auction, trying to sort things out for that... later Tim
now that I think of it....the shims may have not been reinstalled when body/paint work was done. The guy was good...but attention to detail wasn't a strong point. I was suprised just to see the pieves back on - and I did remember to check.
