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We have done several of these for the local Dealer, you have to pull the interior, headliner, seat and we use a 90 degree 3/4 inch blade on our air knife and cut from the inside, I have one tech that uses his pull knife, just angle the blade so it runs closer to the pinchweld.
good luck
Agreed with everything Drglass said, but add that the one we did the other day, had no room for the shank of the blade to clear between the upper and lower slider tracks and the metal of the pinchweld for the inside cuts.
It was extremely difficult and time consuming to remove this window. Nags labor time was not sufficient. I would have to say that this was much more difficult than a 'normal' dodge slider (a difficult removal), and it most definitely wasn't a CRL slider. With no encapsulation around the edge of the glass, extra care must be taken not to 'flex' the slider so that the edge of the glass pinches against the metal of the return wall of the pinchweld during removal.
The R&R of the interior was very well planned by Dodge, for a change. So was the design of the motor and cable routing. Ours was a 4 door PU, not sure how different the interior is on the other cabs, I haven't checked yet.
In any case, these are an extremely difficult removal without scratching the pinchweld, and you don't have the luxury of a encapsulation/molding to hide anything. Don't 'over-do" the urethane bead, and make use of the factory bend-tabs and the factory depth control spacers.
My advice would be to plan extra time, extra care, and most definitely two pair of hands (and eyes).
there are a couple of new tools available that make removal of the ram and dakota backglass alot easier. ultrawiz offers an interior cutout blade for use with a standard coldknife. the blade allows removal without pulling the headliner or the seat. when used in conjunction with the ultrawiz leverknife this blade you have the flexibility to adjust the length of the shank to maneuver around interior. i have removed and reinstalled several using this combo of tools with great success. there is virtually no damage to pinchweld or encapsulation. the part numbers for the blade are 5500 and 5501. they come in two sizes 1/2" and 3/4". i suggest both the smaller for a precut and the latter to finish. if you have any more questions contact me i'd be glad to help
D Hix,
I am familiar with the blades you speak of, but have you tried them on a power slider?
The difference I noted on the one we did was that there was no room for the blade shank to get past the pinchweld. The tracks are different from the regular(manual) sliders.
I would be curious to know if the lack of clearance we witnessed was going to happen on all of the power sliders or if the one we dealt with was a rare occourence. (And God I hope it was)
We had already done 2 of these when I posted. Equalizer Ninja and air Fein got most of the thane. The two we did were 4 door trucks and have a metal bracket for a shoulder belt right behind the passenger side 2 feet(or so) in. This is welded in and doesn't come off without a heat wrench. We wired that section out plus we wired most of the top. There is no way you can not pull the seats and drop the headliner to do one of these. If you don't pull the seats how do you get the motor out????? The power tools have a hard time getting these out as tight as they are. I would like to see someone pull this with a cold knife.
We pulled two of these and replaced the sliders with one piece light tinted glasses. They are going to be used in the TV series Vanished. Some one gets a bullet in the truck and the glass breaks, so the light tint to film the actors. Also we used butyl to hold them in but will thane them back in to original specks when the show is done with them. See there is a use for butyl tape.
my company was subcontracted by dodge to remove roughly 100 ram backglasses, and i did not use a single power tool in the process. the metal bracket you mentioned does suck, no real way around it. i'm pretty sure i removed a few that were power sliders, and still was able to coldknife with the interior blade. non-power i do not remove the seat, just fold the seat up and it allows enough room for the coldknife with the interior blade
Come on D HIX, Your pretty sure you did some power sliders? This bracket is 6 inches high and welded in.
Where may we view these magical cold knife blades?
the blades are available through ultrawiz tools. like i said there really is no way around the bracket. i usually cut the rest of the window free then tip it out and long knife it