At some point in my poor 81's torrid past Bubba replaced the fixed back window with the hatch from an 1982 CE. Poorly. It really is a hatchet job. One hinge is crome while the other is black. He hacked holes in the trim for the hinges and hinge pins to run through. The cable only half works, etc. It's really a bad job. And as you would image, it also leaks like a siv. Anyway, I've been really wanting to get rid of the hatch and go back to the original fixed window, but a lack of funds and availability of a replacement rear window has hampered this.

The glass can run anywhere from $200-$500 on eBay and that's before shipping. Most of the sellers want you to pick it up rather than mess with shipping, which is a good thing in my book except that most of the ones I find are in like Florida or Washington state. At bit out of the way to drive from Oklahoma. And given the fact that I don't HAVE $200+ to blow when there's so much else to be done to the car, not to mention the house and the new baby on the way, has made me start wondering about other options.

Ok, so this may sound stupid, but does anyone thing it'd be possible to take the hatch glass and mount just like the original fixed glass was? Is there any size difference between the two? I got to thinking and I'm betting I could put the plugs that hold the hinges and the pins in from the outside back on with new gaskets and a shorter bolt to keep the holes blocked off. If that would work, then I'd just have to get a set of the outer trim to finish it off. The interior stuff I could gather up later. There's less of a rush on that.

So whatdaya think?