Cheapest way to add visibility out the back doors? (2010 Build Thread)

[lowspeedpursuit]

EDIT: Consolidating other work I've done outside this thread into one place, for future reference purposes:

 

Disable TPMS with Forscan

 

Rear Carpet in Cargo Van

 

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Original Message:

 

I have a 2010 Transit Connect with rear glass only in the right slider. Left slider, rear side panels, and back doors are all solid metal.

 

I don't really care about the left slider and panels, but I need to be able to see straight out the back, and unfortunately the budget is dirt-cheap. Like, if I wasn't worried it would just vibrate itself apart, I would seriously consider going home depot, buying a $50 sheet of lexan, cutting it in half, and gluing it in there in place of the metal. No junkyards within 2 hours of me have back doors with glass, and some of the ones further out are listing completely beat doors for $300/ea.

 

I've seen people talk about adding small universal camper windows with rubber seals, which I could do with very little trouble. But, discussion trends towards "vanlife": budget is no object, and they insist the windows open, have screens and shades, etc. Products discussed are either miniscule (venting only, no focus on visibility), broken links, or $500+/ea.

 

What is the absolute cheapest, simplest, bargain-basement window I can slap in these back doors? It doesn't need to open. It doesn't need a screen, a shade, or even tint. It doesn't need to be remotely designed to fit the Transit Connect. It literally just needs to be available for purchase today and max $100/ea.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by lowspeedpursuit
clarification, links

[windguy]

Interesting proposal. Sounds like a scene from an A-Team episode. Love that show.

 

Poster SKIZO has a Gen 1 like you and added some nice rear windows. See link to his gallery below.

But this would fall under a camper window category that you seem to be discounting.

I have no idea what these windows cost. Maybe the suppliers have a close out on a some models or returns that you can get for less.

It's worth checking into. A ready made RV type auto glass window will provide a nice waterproof seal.

 

Are there junkyards for RVs?

 

Would a backup camera satisfy your need to see out back? Just exploring ideas. Good luck!

 

 

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

18 hours ago, windguy said:

But this would fall under a camper window category that you seem to be discounting.

 

Would a backup camera satisfy your need to see out back? Just exploring ideas. Good luck!

 

That's my bad, I was trying to get everything typed up before heading out of the house and didn't end up being super clear. I'm not opposed to camper windows on principle or anything. Those round-cornered windows in SKIZO's gallery seem like they'd work great; certainly better than nothing. As somebody who's only concerned with budget and not quality, longevity, packaging, or ease of installation, what I'm really looking for is the absolute cheapest possible source for something like that.

 

Every time I find a discussion it's either "check out camper windows" (no links) or the links provided are either dead, stupid expensive, or usually sliders, which I don't need. On a quick google, I can turn up something like this, so the question is:

 

1: Is $150 the best I can do?

2: I hadn't even considered this before, but is 1-1/2" thick appropriate? Or should I target a different thickness if I can?

 

EDIT: I'm also turning up examples like this, which is dirt-cheap, but it's frosted privacy glass, so it's no good for visibility. But, it does make me think "I should be able to come up with what I want for pretty cheap, my google-fu is just too weak to find it." I'm hoping that maybe somebody else has been in my shoes before, and found the answer I'm looking for.

 

I had also considered backup cameras, and I think that even a few years later they were an option on the windowless vans! But, my goal is to be able to see behind me while driving forward, not just while parking/in reverse.

 

18 hours ago, LostnTransit said:

Contact an RV installer for customized rear windows options for your van.

 

Retaining a company to customize something is certainly an option, but it doesn't seem like it would be the cheapest, which is really the hardest requirement of the project. If I reached out to a "local" company, for example, I live in what's become a stupidly-high-COL area. They would absolutely take me to the cleaners.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
new example, corrections

[lowspeedpursuit]

So to update, the top contenders from my cursory searching are as follows:

 

RecPro RV Entry Door Window w/ Internal Shade - $92.95

 

"Premium" 15 x 30 x 1.5" RV Teardrop Window - $94.49

 

To explain more about the budget, I arrived at $100/ea. because my U-Pull-It charges $100-130 for a whole door, and actually has first-gen Transit Connects not-too-irregularly, but none right now have back glass. I can also see other yards on car-part.com listing back doors with glass for $99, there are just none near me. Given that swapping a door is stupid easy, whereas installing a camper window requires cutting, then fabricating a frame to take up the extra thickness, it seems smarter just to wait and hope the parts to show up in an accessible, affordable junkyard than to pay substantially more money to also give myself more work.

 

For the $150 windows I linked above, it takes 30 seconds to find a ton of sliders on Amazon between $100-150. Sliders have more utility in opening and screens, which makes $150 for a window with less utility seem overpriced. But, the sliders aren't useful to me because the center frame reduces visibility.

 

 

Thanks again to the guys who responded last night, and if anybody else has any more ideas, they're always welcome!

[lowspeedpursuit]

The huge variability in junkyard pricing is both confusing and frustrating. For example, I can see right now that if I was willing to drive 4hrs away, I could have glass doors today for $125/ea. Like I said above, if I just wait a bit, I might find them less than an hour away for $100.

 

Knowing that, I would set my personal max price for doors at ~200/ea. That's the price here for an entire straight axle at the full-service yard, so it seems more than fair.

 

But, then I just got off the phone with a guy ~2hrs away who told me he wants $500/ea. I didn't mean to be rude, but I couldn't help but laugh. That price is total insanity.

 

 

Not to get too far off-topic, but I'm only driving this van because parts for my actual truck are on what feels like perpetual backorder. Work was going to scrap it, but it was just super dirty and had a bad battery, so I took it off their hands. So, it has very little value to me, and I can't justify dumping any more money into it than is absolutely necessary.

 

 

EDIT: Yard just over 2 hours away has glass doors for $200/ea. But, the guy on the phone was fairly insistent I "would probably want to look somewhere else" since while they have both doors, but they're "mismatched from different vans". Maybe they're beat to pieces, or maybe only one has a wiper or something; I don't know.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
new info

[G B L]

19 hours ago, lowspeedpursuit said:

The huge variability in junkyard pricing is both confusing and frustrating. For example, I can see right now that if I was willing to drive 4hrs away, I could have glass doors today for $125/ea. Like I said above, if I just wait a bit, I might find them less than an hour away for $100.

If a real set of doors with OEM style windows are between 125 and 200 dollars and are a bolt fit with a Rattle Can paint finish then the whole project can be accomplished .  The only real question is how many hours of mental angst  can a few hundred dollars  avoid.  The OEM doors will provide the best outcome from a vision stand point! 

[BobbyP]

back to the back up camera idea. I set mine up to be on all the time. it has 2 video feeds. with a quick switch i can see the passenger side blind spot also. cost less than the 150 budget.

[lowspeedpursuit]

On the backup camera, did you already have a video head unit, or are you using an aftermarket monitor? I'm not sure if the 2011+ vans come with screens even without the camera option, but mine just has a normal radio. Mounting aftermarket stuff on my dash isn't really my thing, and I can't imaging getting a double-DIN screen that cheap.

[drum_buster]

On 8/10/2022 at 12:25 PM, lowspeedpursuit said:

I have a 2010 Transit Connect with rear glass only in the right slider. Left slider, rear side panels, and back doors are all solid metal.

 

I don't really care about the left slider and panels, but I need to be able to see straight out the back, and unfortunately the budget is dirt-cheap. Like, if I wasn't worried it would just vibrate itself apart, I would seriously consider going home depot, buying a $50 sheet of lexan, cutting it in half, and gluing it in there in place of the metal. No junkyards within 2 hours of me have back doors with glass, and some of the ones further out are listing completely beat doors for $300/ea.

 

I've seen people talk about adding small universal camper windows with rubber seals, which I could do with very little trouble. But, discussion trends towards "vanlife": budget is no object, and they insist the windows open, have screens and shades, etc. Products discussed are either miniscule (venting only, no focus on visibility), broken links, or $500+/ea.

 

What is the absolute cheapest, simplest, bargain-basement window I can slap in these back doors? It doesn't need to open. It doesn't need a screen, a shade, or even tint. It doesn't need to be remotely designed to fit the Transit Connect. It literally just needs to be available for purchase today and max $100/ea.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

Do you want to install factory glass? You can get window glass cheap. Cut out just around visible area and use a windshield urethane glue to adhere the glass to the back door panel. You can get a roll of the U Shaped rubber to protect cut edge. Find the glass on ebay or even new from amazon. There should be other forums on here of people doing this.

 

https://www.amazon.com/TYG-2010-2013-Transit-Connect-Passenger/dp/B00PT8KZF8

[lowspeedpursuit]

Huh, that seems like nearly the cheapest way, and certainly the best value. Even if each window uses an entire tube of sealant, and I need to buy a new caulk gun, that would be $216 for max visibility.

 

I wasn't aware it's that straightforward to install glued-in window glass yourself, or that it could be had that cheaply. I'd also seen people say that companies don't want to ship bare glass. But, in my experience Amazon doesn't think anything of just giving your money back if something happens to the package, so no worries there.

 

Unless the complete doors come up, or anyone has any other ideas, I'll probably go that route then. I'll throw up some pictures as well, but things are hectic and it might be a few weeks before I have time for the project.

 

Thanks!

[BobbyP]

On 8/14/2022 at 5:55 PM, lowspeedpursuit said:

On the backup camera, did you already have a video head unit, or are you using an aftermarket monitor? I'm not sure if the 2011+ vans come with screens even without the camera option, but mine just has a normal radio. Mounting aftermarket stuff on my dash isn't really my thing, and I can't imaging getting a double-DIN screen that cheap.

 

[BobbyP]

aftermarket monitor. mounted were the rearview mirror would be so it would be more natural instead of looking down on dash.

link to the post. 

 

[drum_buster]

On 8/17/2022 at 6:13 AM, lowspeedpursuit said:

Huh, that seems like nearly the cheapest way, and certainly the best value. Even if each window uses an entire tube of sealant, and I need to buy a new caulk gun, that would be $216 for max visibility.

 

I wasn't aware it's that straightforward to install glued-in window glass yourself, or that it could be had that cheaply. I'd also seen people say that companies don't want to ship bare glass. But, in my experience Amazon doesn't think anything of just giving your money back if something happens to the package, so no worries there.

 

Unless the complete doors come up, or anyone has any other ideas, I'll probably go that route then. I'll throw up some pictures as well, but things are hectic and it might be a few weeks before I have time for the project.

 

Thanks!

I think these vans are unique, especially the Gen 1 connects (2010-2013 in US, 2002-2012 if European) with the stamped recess in the metal, which matches the shape of the window if present. Enough digging in these forums can get you answers on things that aren't quite the subject of each thread - that's how I figured it out. I am working on adding glass to my slider doors which are even easier as it requires no cutting. The "panel" that exists in non-window slider doors (sliders, not back doors) is a fiberglass panel held in with a windshield urethane glue. I plan to remove the fiberglass with a thin wire glue cutter (like glass guys use) and then after cleaning up the residue, pop factory shaped window on with new glue.

 

If anyone here is interested, the NYC taxi version of the Gen 1 connects had a small sliding portion of the glass window in the sliding doors. They were not available on other models, and not available from the factory that made them (custom glass shop in Turkey I believe).  Best way to find them is get on car-part.com and search for glass from wrecking yards.

[lowspeedpursuit]

So glass and parts are here. Total damage on Amazon was ~$257 for back windows, 2x urethane, "high-thrust" caulk gun, u-channel rubber, and a rear-view mirror.

 

I briefly priced out the other 3 windows I don't have, but all of the side windows were considerably more expensive. Assuming installing the back glass goes well, the others can be an "if they come up cheaper at some point" project, or I can do the camera thing for the left-side blind spot. I feel like the actual "blind spot" is fairly small, and I can eliminate it by leaning forward before I merge, so there's no urgency there.

 

I'm gonna try and do the install Saturday afternoon, but if the parts for my truck show up Saturday, that takes priority.

 

EDIT:

On 8/23/2022 at 12:32 PM, drum_buster said:

If anyone here is interested, the NYC taxi version of the Gen 1 connects had a small sliding portion of the glass window in the sliding doors. They were not available on other models, and not available from the factory that made them (custom glass shop in Turkey I believe).  Best way to find them is get on car-part.com and search for glass from wrecking yards.

 

That's fascinating. LA Taxis as well, apparently. This one is 40 hours away from me, which is a little out of reach:

 

https://imageappoh.car-part.com/image?seller=8048&partsourceid=8048&partGUID=E0AFA98A-7540-4EE2-ABB0-D7C844F1CFDE&vehicleGUID=C886242C-EBAC-4493-BBD6-DA3F9F2939C9&display=2012 Ford Transit Connect Rear Door Glass-Stock%23 0062

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
sliding taxi windows

[drum_buster]

Nice! Looking forward to photos. Hope it goes smoothly. Keep us posted.

On 8/23/2022 at 6:29 PM, lowspeedpursuit said:

I briefly priced out the other 3 windows I don't have, but all of the side windows were considerably more expensive. Assuming installing the back glass goes well, the others can be an "if they come up cheaper at some point" project, or I can do the camera thing for the left-side blind spot. I feel like the actual "blind spot" is fairly small, and I can eliminate it by leaning forward before I merge, so there's no urgency there.

 

3 other windows? Did you only buy one rear door glass or are you also talking about the far rear sides that the passenger "wagon" models had? Shown below. I suspect these are more difficult as I think there is more cutting required. There is no pretty indent in the panel for extents of where to cut on the far back quarter glass, but from the inside you can tell there's two layers of sheet metal. 

 

On 8/23/2022 at 6:29 PM, lowspeedpursuit said:

That's fascinating. LA Taxis as well, apparently. This one is 40 hours away from me, which is a little out of reach:

Interesting great add!

[lowspeedpursuit]

Yeah, I still won't have the left slider window or those rear-most side windows; I've been calling them "rear panels". It looks like the bigger rectangular windows all trend ~$150/ea. even on eBay/Amazon, while the back door windows were something like $75 and $90, respectively.

 

I don't really care about the panels, especially for the increased difficulty of installation, because I don't think they really afford the driver a ton of extra visibility, except maybe in weird reversing situations. I do see that some? all? of them can pop open for ventilation, which is cool, but would only further complicate installation.

 

Likewise, knowing about the taxi window option in the sliders makes me even less interested in dropping $150 on fixed glass. I actually shot the Turkish glass factory an e-mail--like who knows how many other community members before me--and got nothing back. Seriously debating asking a Turkish coworker if he could give them a ring next week. I've had a surprising amount of success with stuff everyone swears is unavailable in various parts catalogs just calling and asking nicely.

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
contact info

[lowspeedpursuit]

Okay, part 1 of several:

 

Pulled the back right door. 4x 13mm bolts, plus the wiring for the lock.

 

 

This is the latch mechanism, behind the "wooden" door trim. You slide that red blocking tab out along those grey rails, and it comes completely off. The actual button you press in to release the connector is underneath. I didn't throw them on the package scale, but by my standards, these doors are extremely light. I literally just held the outside edge, zipped the bolts out, and let it fall onto the bumper.

 

The window is basically an exact fit for the recessed area on the outside door skin, but has considerably wide blacked-out borders.

 

 

I traced the cutout to correspond to the transparent region of the glass. 4.25" in from the center, 3" up from the bottom, and 1.5" from both the top and outside. The resulting shape should be 18.5" tall and across at the bottom, and 17" across at the top. The radii of the top corners are 1.25" on the inside and 1" on the outside. The radii of the bottom two corners are very tight (~0.5")

 

 

I cocked up the outside-bottom corner and ended up with a straight angled cut, rather than a smooth curve. Such is life. I cleaned up the corners and deburred the raw edge. This is the test-fit and cut-to-length on my u-channel rubber.

 

I didn't take a picture of it yet, but I cut the vertical support brace off flush with the inside edge of the window area, not my cutout. I feel like this will look better, and avoid exposing a sharp edge, from inside the van.

 

Thickness of the skin appears to be 18ga, and it's magnetic. Just threw .025 wire back in my welder for the first time in years, so once I see if I can weld on the cutout without warping or burning through, I plan to stitch the outside skin and inside structure of the door together for a bit more strength. Maybe glass tonight, but it's balls hot, and I'm probably going to be pissed off after welding.

[lowspeedpursuit]

Okay, part 2. Install is done, just nitpicking and cleanup left. This is text-heavy and has minimal pictures because it turns out that when you take pictures of glass, you just get a reflection of yourself, which I'd rather keep to myself.

 

After my last post, I repeated all the work up to that point on the left door. The wiring to remove there is simpler; it's just two small plugs for the tag lights that pull right off, with no latch. Camera people, I assume, have more.

 

I am truly godawful at welding sheet metal, and have very little practice, so I ended up welding just a series of tacks along the top and outside edges of my cutout. The inside edge felt rigid enough not to bother, and the bottom edge was so far from lining up with the inner structure that it wouldn't be trimmed by my u-channel rubber.

 

 

Prep was removing most of the inner and outer paint with a flap disc so it didn't ignite, but I made minimal effort to get all the paint out from between the layers. The right door went fairly well. The left, while I felt better about prep, I had a lot of trouble with burn-through along the top edge. Again, such is life. The things I build are rarely pretty.

 

On the left side of this picture, you can also see how I cut back the vertical support flush with the inner structure. That grey I-shaped area is unpainted metal from between the vertical support and outer skin.

 

I gave my welds a cursory cleaning, repainted (white spraypaint, which hopefully does not affect the urethane's adhesive properties), and broke for the day.

 

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On the second day I installed the rubber and glass. I have no idea how you're supposed to fix u-channel rubber in place. I used a random bottle of fast-setting superglue I had laying around. It worked well enough for my purposes. Then I gave the inside of the glass and outer door skin a quick wipedown.

 

The urethane I used was Sikaflex P2G Black*. I used exactly one entire 10.1oz tube between both doors. The spec sheet indicates a 15 minute open time (how long you have to install the glass after laying the bead) and a 6 hour driveaway time (when I put the doors back on the van). I used the "v-notch" method. The included tip was not pre-cut, but did have a template, so I just snipped along the lines. Basically, you cut the tip off straight across, then cut out a moderately deep triangle pointing towards the urethane tube. When you apply the urethane, you hold the tip completely perpendicular against the work surface, and the urethane will shoot out sideways, in the shape of the triangle.

 

I applied the urethane to the door, because it was easier. I ran a double-bead on the 4.25"-thick inner edge. I forgot about the wiper holes in the glass, and basically crudely filled them in with urethane after the glass was in place. It looks janky, and should probably be trimmed over. If you intend to install wipers, I'm sure there's some kind of a seal or grommet. Because I worked without a helper or one of those glass-tech suction cups, I had the door laying face-up, applied the urethane, then balanced one edge of the glass on the outer edge of the door while I reached my other hand in through the cutout to support the glass from underneath. Lowered it into the recess and open-palm pressed several times around the perimeter.

 

 

Lessons learned during this part: if a little bit of urethane squeezes out into the gap between the glass and recess like on the outside-top corner, just leave it alone. I think the spec sheet listed a solvent for uncured urethane, but just assume you can't wipe this stuff up, and trying to will only make it worse.

 

After six hours, I reinstalled the doors. I put blue loctite on the bolts and tightened by feel. To balance the doors on the bumper at the right height, I used one of the pieces of styrofoam the glass was shipped in. Before tightening the bolts all the way, I aligned the hinges with the unpainted parts of the jamb that indicate where they originally were.

 

 

This picture sucks, but it started raining its ass off, unscheduled, less than ten minutes after I bolted the doors on. I threw some tape along the edges, and hopefully six hours was enough for water exposure.

 

We'll know tomorrow if it leaks, and I'll take final pics inside and out. Trim from the inside is imperfect, but passable. No worse than anything else about this van.

 

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*EDIT: I've read that Sika P2G is literally only primerless on the glass side, and "may" require primer on the body. I'm not even really sure what the point is, then (I guess it saves professionals a bit of time, which adds up over multiple jobs), but whatever. YMMV. I'll update this thread if at some point my windows suddenly fall out.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
sikaflex p2g info

[lowspeedpursuit]

Part 3. The following minor work had to be done:

 

Remove tape, reattach wiring clips, reinstall door trim. The outer tag light didn't want to work, but the wiring and bulb were fine, so I bent the pins a bit tighter and it came back on.

 

Installed a rear-view mirror. The basic one on Amazon doesn't come with glue, so that was $7.50 at Advance Auto.

 

Back glass is still firmly in place and shows no leaks after the big storm last night. So, aside from minor improvements I might come up with in the future to make the trim look better, I'd say the project is done:

 

 

 

Visibility is obviously infinitely better. Gonna take the van on the highway tomorrow and check everything out in action. Final project cost was ~$265, plus a handful of consumables I already had in the shop.

 

If anybody has any questions, additions, or comes up with a line or has anything else to contribute on the sliding door windows with sliders for the 1st-gens, feel free to ping me. If I do something for visibility on the left slider, be it fixed glass, sliding glass, or a camera, I'll update this again.

 

Thanks!

[Fifty150]

That is awesome.  Now you cut the roof, and install a skylight.

[lowspeedpursuit]

I'm sure somebody makes that. Roof on this thing is flat enough (PO already blew 8 holes through it to mount a ladder rack); the hardest part would be trimming into the headliner. I wanted to have a lie-down in the back a few weekends ago but would literally have died from the heat, so an exhaust fan in the roof has crossed my mind.

 

New glass survived ~120mi at highway speeds, plus a construction zone. Cheap rear-view vibrates quite a bit at idle, but smooths out under way. Still smells a bit like superglue, so hopefully that fades sooner than later.

 

 

This is far off-topic, but I don't see a unified "electronics" subforum? Next major project is to figure out why none of the automatic (door open) lights have ever worked. I'm not finding any resources for wiring diagrams in the community, and literally everywhere that sells information has apparently jacked prices up sky-high this year. $100 for the manual seems a poor investment for a vehicle that I don't plan to keep. Cheapest option is to buy direct from Ford, 3 days for $22? But 3 days is nothing, and I'm worried their website will pull some nonsense and try not to let me save the diagrams.

 

EDIT: "Workshop" and "Wiring Diagram" manuals are apparently on their way from eBay for $20/ea. I'll still have them in my shop even if I get rid of the van, so assuming they don't show up drenched in coffee or something, anyone feel free to let me know if you need whatever info. I'll paraphrase the procedures and redraw the damn wiring diagrams myself if there are copyright concerns; I'm sick of all the gating and expense around service manuals for old cars that are no longer directly supported by dealers.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
eBay

[windguy]

@lowspeedpursuit - nice job. Thanks for sharing the updates.

Refreshing to see someone add some decent utility to their van rather than a bunch of nonsense.

I get the feeling you might just keep this van after all, maybe?

 

 

 

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Thanks! And no worries.

 

Whether I ultimately keep the van depends on whether it can be made to fill some kind of niche. It's a perfectly serviceable spare car, but I have a lot of nitpicks, and it doesn't really do anything "better".

 

My normal daily is an old Ranger, so I already have a better way to haul, which is also 4x4, and more fun to drive by virtue of being a manual. It's also, believe it or not, quieter on the road, and the TC's gas mileage is eh.

 

I had thought that maybe the TC could be used to haul more than 2 kayaks or paddleboards at once, but it's not nearly long enough to put stuff like that inside, and you can't really leave things hanging out the back with barn doors.

 

I guess the most interesting use for the TC is as a compact camper, but that's a huge project I've got no experience with (and as I've mentioned, the things I build are not pretty). I also need to be super comfortable to sleep, so I don't really know if I'm a camping kind of guy.

[lowspeedpursuit]

What do you know, NY taxis really do come up sometimes on car-part. The guys who have this one even ship glass, although the shipping was more than the window. $192 total, pending. Compared to $155 for fixed glass, I'm okay with that.

 

I'll follow up with the install when it arrives. I only bought the left side. If someone else near the East coast with a 1st-gen wants the right, now's your chance.

 

 

[Fifty150]

A lot of useable parts on that car.  This is the chance for people who want things like the door stopper, or seats.