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Flat rod gets a windshield

Sloppy Seconds
Posted September 16 2009 05:50 AM by John Cappa 
Filed under: Editorials, Jeep Enthusiast Culture, John Cappa

Yep, OK, it's kinda butch in practice. But the idea was not to spend a lot of money on this thing. So when it came to the windshield I had to come up with a better solution than spending $200-$300 on a used windshield frame with glass only to cut it down and then have the glass recut too. I would have had about 1/3 or 1/2 of the whole cost of the Jeep in the windshield alone. And a Duval-style hot rod windshield was anywhere from $300-$1,000 without glass. And I wasn't even sure if it would fit! Not gonna happen. So here is what I did to match the rat rod theme of the Jeep.


I like the look of copper, especially when it starts to tarnish. So I went to the local hardware store and picked up some 1-inch copper pipe and a few fittings. A reader sent me the CJ-2A windshield brackets I needed in trade for some stickers, so I bolted those to my tub. Then I learned how to fit and sweat the pipe together with a butane torch. I used a grinder to cut a slit on the inside of the frame so the glass (lexan) would slide into place. The top tube and bends are glued to the bottom part, otherwise I would have melted the windshield. I think it looks cleaner than having a bunch of screws or rivets showing and it looks kind of neat, certainly original. What do you think?

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