Brat windshield options or mods

[idahofarmboy]

Due to a family friend selling the farm, downsizing, and moving away, I just bought his collection of three brats. 78 parts car and a 79 and 81 which are drivable. He also filled the beds with spare engines, transmissions, and other parts.

I want to fix them up, but the fact you can't get a windshield really bothers me. The third one could easily be restored to running again and hit the roads IF I can get a windshield for it. 

I'm afraid of spending too much money on the ones that are running because one stray rock and the whole thing becomes undrivable forever!

Has anyone come up with other windshield options? Any mods to get a different one to fit? Any way to get a glass company to make them again? Has anyone done a DIY windshield with flat glass options? I tried searching but did not find anything.

I guess I could just take the windshield out and drive with motorcycle goggles if the weather is nice.

All the other hard to find parts can usually be fabricated, swapped, or modified with other parts and a bit of creativity. But to me, the windshield is the Achilles heel of this car. If the two I have break, I'll have three cars I can't drive.

Surely there must be options! Please help me out here.

 

Edited November 14, 2018 by idahofarmboy
Typo fix

[moosens]

Best option is keep looking. No ideal replacement exists other than another 70’s Subaru. 

I have at least one I could sell but shipping glass can be awful tricky. 

And I just found another windshield gasket from our last group buy. 

Glass - $ 150

Gasket - $ 85

You can check PRP and you’ll see they probably still have the gasket as they’re who we went thru and their price with shipping is pretty much a little over my price. These were all made at the same time. I just had the receipt recently cleaning out some old paperwork.

My glass will be very nice for it’s age. No chips or cracks and no sandblast. $150 is as low as I’ll ever go from here on out.

Crating up the glass will be a chore I sure won’t want to do for free. But for like $70 I’ll have it in a nice soft bed surrounded by wood. That I think is a deal too given it’s cold as heck now and I have to do all this outdoors at storage. So right around $300 plus the actual shipping. We are generally thrifty folks here but I don’t see where I can budge any. I hope you find my explaination reasonable. 

 

But by by all means keep looking and I hope you score well. The gasket is available so no worries there. Car-part.com if you haven’t already. 

[idosubaru]

$150 is a great deal for an unavailable windshield. 

With two drivable brats - drive them while you fix the other?

or sell one to fund some extra/spare windshields. 

[Subasaurus]

35 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

$150 is a great deal for an unavailable windshield. 

With two drivable brats - drive them while you fix the other?

or sell one to fund some extra/spare windshields. 

yup, some funds for the other 2 that im sure are in desperate need, or sacrifice the worst condition one to feed extra parts and options the others don't have, in my own opinion, it's silly to have 3 and trying to restore all 3, it was too much for me when i had 2, i was always tempted to steal a part from one and bring it to the other, thats why i sold my 79 wagon and kept the brat lol.

[idahofarmboy]

After further contemplation, I think I'll restore one as close to original as possible and make it pretty.  I'll take the best parts from all three for that one. I'll make the second one my reliable but less pretty daily driver that I may actually let my kids drive. The third I'll use for parts. 

Sounds like a reasonable price for the glass. PM sent.