I will post some pictures of my new polycarbonate side windows as soon as I'm finished with installing the new carpets and top the top back up so you can see how the new poly windows look. I have wanted these windows since I saw Alan's at Carlisle 2 years ago. Lane motivated me and Alan Merkin gave me his cardboard patterns at Carlisle 2 years ago and I just now completed fabricating the windows..
I went with 1/8 polycrabonate which seems like it will be fine for my application because of the way the two mounts work ---Alan's invention too. Also, My car is a Vintage and has that strap at the bottom of the window that attaches to the bottom of the piece that contains the ferrules with snaps. I found some strips of tan leatger and riveted one end to the window and put a snap on the other end of the strip to snap to the location where the original VS strip went. The window is very rigid and I believe I found the perfect rubber pieces ---a piece for the bottom of the window that has a flat rubber piece, 1" wide that seals along the top of the door and for the front of the window, the perfect rubber piece from McMaster-Carr ---not a hunky piece but one with the sealing surfcae that goes straight towards the front of the car rather than a tube at the front or back.
(I should have waited until I had a photo). For the top of the windows I found some special tape that is coated to make the window
slip easily into the space where the top of the window goes. I found that a piece of rubber at the top is unnecessary and makes the space at the top be pushed out , wider.
I also went with the little aircraft windows that Joe Soltis found ---the ones in Lane's pictures. These are great too---you can close then or direct any amount of air in that you want.
Last,one reason I went with 1/8" was that this is the size that the rubber fits without opening the mounting space wider or squeezing it
together to force a fit. Plus it's lighter and should work as good
as the thicker, heavier material.
I learned from Alan that the Vintage mounts won't work well and I have a set for anyone who wants them. Fot a fit against the windshield the bottom edge has to be about 1" (or a bit bore) out from the vertical. The VS mounts are for a window that is straight up
---not out at the bottom. A straight up window won't fit well against the windshield.
The first window took me 1 frikkin day to get it right and the second one only about an hour!