how heavy is the stock rear hatch with glass and w/o glass?

[Guest ON3GO]

like title says.. anybody every weighed theres?

 

thanks

 

mike

[CruxGNZ]

I tell ya' what, I have an extra hatch with glass from my '73 sitting downstairs. I'll grab the bathroom scale and be back in a few...

 

EDIT: The hatch weighs roughly 37 lbs. A little more than half of that weight is the glass. Having handled a hatch without glass, I would guess the weight to be about 15 lbs. for just the hatch.

 

!M!

[260DET]

High weight and a lot of it, both bad. Someone is up to something.

[Guest ON3GO]

so a carbon fiber one wouldnt really do much, huh..

maybe a carbon one with some light weight lexan or something..

 

hmm

what you guys think?

 

mike

[260DET]

One of my future to do's, may replace the hatch itself with a f'glass copy, don't know that anything stronger would be required. But that glass and rubber seal have to go, plexiglass could be bonded in. Providing its done neatly it should look ok.

 

Have to get the curve in the plexiglass replacement though.

[Dan Juday]

I don't want to sound like one of those "do a search!" guys but this was hashed out a while back. I know because I weighed the parts myself and posted it here.

 

Terry, a.k.a. BlueovalZ has a fiberglass hatch with some type of plastic window in it. He can shed some light on the process or maybe offer sources for a glass hatch.

[TomoHawk]

Probably already been said....

 

Doesn't Lexan get all fogged up if you apply wax or cleaner, etc? I think gas would do something damaging too.

 

How thick would that lexan be?

[JMortensen]

We used 3/16" on my old bosses's Porsche, and half the Lexan cracked and came off at 160 mph from the air pressure inside the cabin. I think they ended up putting some holes in it with a hole saw eventually. On a friend's 510, we used 1/8", but we really don't expect it to see over 125 or so.

 

Jon

[TomoHawk]

Cabin pressure...

 

That explains why the Enzo GTOs all had the vents on the back.

 

I think you could get away without the window vents, because the Z has those vents between the quarter window & hatch. Window vents would look cool, tho.

[Synlubes]

I would be interested in just a lite replacement for the rear glass.

 

Use the same thickness as the stock glass.

Add a couple bracing brackets running down the window.

And use the stock type rear window gasket.

 

Just some thoughts.

[blueovalz]

This is what I've done. I fabricated a fiberglass hatch that has a Lexan window in it of reduced size. The OEM hatch with hinges, weighed 41lbs. My fiberglass hatch with the Lexan window weighs 20lbs. The thing working in our favor on fabricating both the hatch and the window are that both of these items have a convex shape to them to a small degree. This prevents either from collapsing, or bowing, under their own weight. I used the OEM hatch to make the fiberglass skin (laid the glass over the hatch and pulled it off in simple terms). The Lexan window is 1/8" thick, was laid into a frame made into the hatch so that the lexan would be flush with the top surface of the hatch. I pop-rivited mine in place (it was a race car at the time) and the lexan formed very nicely to the convex shape of the hatch in a very uniform manner with no heat applied.

Here is the framing:

 

And a shot showing it sitting in hatch with no rivets. Again, this was a race set-up, but it worked well. For the street I removed the rivits, and replaced them with some really FLAT 8-32 screws, and a bead of sealer under the Lexan. I really like the few "race look" items on the car, and this was one I kept for that reason.

 

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[TomoHawk]

That looks good. I have some experience making/modifying parts and hulls for r/c powerboats, so I can tell. Was the spoiler an integral part? Would make sense to mold it as one piece (in the end).

[blueovalz]

The spoiler is a separate piece. Mainly because I still can't decide whether I like it on the car or not. Something about the Z's tight little rear end (I can hear the flames roaring in the background already) keeps me from fully commiting to a permanent spoiler on the back.