1935 Pickup Windshield Regulator

J35ford

J35ford

Member
I am in need of one as my gears are stripped out. No one has the reproduction ones in stock. Does anyone know where you can either purchase just the lower gear arms or one at all? I did see in my search on here that someone mentioned you may be able to purchase just the lower arms with gears. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Your ONLY shot at it that I know of is reach out to Joes antique auto. He used to rebuild them don’t know if he still does. Drake will have them available again but word has it it will still be several months
 
There is a guy on eBay who makes the pot metal gear which is what is usually shot. Bought one to fix my 39 a few years ago, sorry I can't find his contact info.
 
I've also found the gears on the arms are stripped on many of the ones I pick up for parts at flea markets or on ebay. I think those stripped teeth on the arms could be repaired by brazing material on to the stripped area and carefully/patiently filing that into new teeth.
 
Joe’s sent me this back.

Thanks for your inquiry but at this time we are looking into someone
rebuilding original regulators but nothing yet.
 
Thought about trying to make my own but the gears on this are angled so was worried with what I made they might strip easy. Worth a shot I guess as no one has any of these. Seems like the 35-36 are getting harder and harder to find reproduction parts for.
 
J35ford said:
Thought about trying to make my own but the gears on this are angled so was worried with what I made they might strip easy. Worth a shot I guess as no one has any of these. Seems like the 35-36 are getting harder and harder to find reproduction parts for.
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As I mentioned previously, I bought these '35-'36 windshield regulators on ebay and at flea markets in the past at very little cost, knowing they were defective. I've disassembled these by removing rivets to salvage the good, reusable parts. By matching up good parts, I was able to repair enough of these for my own use. This was prior to Bob Drake's offering of a reproduction version, which by the way, were spot on to the original design, and work very well. Once his became available, I bought several when he offered them at a good sale price.

A couple reasons these mechanisms fail is the windshield will sometimes become stuck in the closed position for various reasons, and this causes an excessive strain on the gears when trying to crank the windshield open, and eventually causing them to fail. Or folks attempt to open the windshield while the vehicle is moving forward and the wind resistance on a flat windshield will also create an excessive strain on those gears.
 
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Chet Chambers in RG 5 used to rebuild these for around $100 each for the club members and Joe's, but he passed away a few years ago.
 
YAHOO!!! I found the separate gear and a complete regulator with a new rack. I was told they were impossible, so I dug in and had 3 in a year. (You do know that later on the potmetal gear was not used: a serrated thick piece of sheet metal was formed as the gear. This design did not fail.)





I bought the repo potmetal gears from
Greg Coleman
PO Box 75
Milledgeville, IL. 61051.
Pay for mailing and it is yours.

If you want the entire regulator, please make a offer.
Happy New Year.
 
Awesome I will take them. Let me know how you want me to pay you for them or you can text me at 989-213-1270 and we can set it up.
 
Interesting; I have never seen pot metal '35-'36 regulator gears; they have all been steel.

I've had quite a few with either worn out or rusted away teeth.

Was not one of Henry's good ideas as compared with the '33-'34 regulators.

Somewhere there is a guy that makes replacements for the '39 pot metal gear (more of a rack; I'd call it).
 
Check with barnfind08 here on the barn. He posted some parts on Instagram recently including a windshield regulator. I am not sure what year and model it fit.
 
Out of habit I guess, I always gave the w/s a slight helping hand as I cranked the regulator with the other hand at the same time.

Did that on the '37 PU and do it now on our '36PU, just a routine I got into without really thinking about it.

The Ford Motor Co. promotional video from Silverado Publishing on the '35-'36 Fords, shows a petite lady with a gloved hand, working the w/s regulator on a '36 Three Window Coupe with the greatest of ease. I bet they were pretty smooth on an original car:)
 
What were some of the ways the windshield was held closed? My ‘39 windshield will not open. I found and removed a couple of homemade clips on the lower corners so the outside lower moves but the center is still solid and I can’t find what is holding it firm. The regulator arms are free with enough slack that the windshield could move.

Any tricky spots for screws? Adhesive? but I can’t see any evidence between the parts.
 
Maybe the rubber seal has deteriorated and bonded it self to the body.

Open a gap with putty knife and pass a fishing line thru there and then run all the way around the frame to get it loose.
 
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