Hi all. Sorry to keep asking weird questions here! So some background on what I'm doing and why. My car is the one in my profile picture. I've had it a little over 10 years - I bought it as a running project. It's one of those cars where it's in good enough condition that it should definitely be fixed up, but it was all original and everything in it was too far gone to salvage a lot. I'm in the process of building it into something along the lines of an ultra-lightweight car that's more track-oriented than street, but street legal. Like all 80's it has power windows. To simplify the wiring harness and lose some weight from the doors I'd like to delete those. I've looked for crank window regulators, but it seems like nobody makes reproductions, which leaves me scouring Ebay for all of the parts to do the conversion.

Something I've seen on some old factory lightweight 911's was a leather strap that was attached to the window channel and had several snaps or buckles on the inside of the door panel. To open the window, unhook the strap, push the window down, and re-hook the strap at a higher attachment. To close the window, unhook the strap, pull it up, and hook it to the attachment point at the bottom of the door. Has anybody done this and if so do you have some plans you'd be willing to share so that I don't have to experiment this system into existence? I couldn't find anything in previous threads. Thanks!

 

i put speed holes in all of my regulator arms and tracks... still not as light as the strap idea, which I think would be cool in an “outlaw” style car.
bolt the strap to the track that bolts to the bottom of the window, roll over the top edge of the door structure so the strap can ride on a smooth surface, and figure out where you want to put the buttons or snaps to hold it in place. The 80-82 cars already have the thinner glass of all the c3’s but there is a company that makes plexi side windows. Not sure of the name but someone posted about it a week ago regarding a plexi rear window.

 

Thanks! That's along the lines of what I was thinking. I've considered lexan side windows but the only company I could find that makes them charges about $400 to $450 for the set. Eventually that's in the works but right now I need that money elsewhere! This is a picture of this kind of setup on a Porsche from the PelicanParts forum:




I'm a big fan of the Colin Chapman "Simplify, then add lightness," philosophy, so this really appeals to me on a lot of levels.

 

Do you have to have the passenger side window operational or can you just put it in the up position and leave it there.

 

If possible I'd like to have it movable, since I'm taking the AC and even the center level of the blower system out, so it would help to get hot air out of the passenger compartment. BUT I'm always down to learn about ideas! What are you thinking?

 

Nothing that would really get you lighter just simplicity. With the left window open should be big enough opening to get heat out and plenty of air in. Makes no real difference either way. Lots of ways to lighten a vette if you can do fabrication work along with aluminun welding. Lots of stuff could be made out of aluminum to carbon fiber to kevlar.

 

I used old seat belts from a wrecking yard. The old 60's and ,,70's Chrysler's the entire latch was easy to grab and GM had a push button. Works great. You got me thinking.