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How to tap threads in a CRL AW1033 & T-Vent Style Window Frame
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May 3, 2025
Today at Van Builder HQ, Nick is showing how to tap threads in a CRL AW1033 & T-Vent Style Window Frame. Visit https://www.vanbuilderhq.com to learn more. Interested in buying a van? Check out https://www.odysseycustomvans.com
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[Music]
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hey guys welcome back we're working on our ford transit camper van and we've been installing these aw 1033
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awning style windows from cr lawrence the reason i'm making this video is
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i've seen a lot of videos on youtube where the
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standard screws that come with this are really challenging to put into this
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frame because you essentially if you do not pre-drill the holes to accept these screws
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it's really hard to get them to bite through the aluminum at the same time you're not able to get
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a good feel if you got a full seat of the screw clamping the frame
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to the window to get your seal and what this is causing and this is just for my
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watching of youtube people with these uh doing these windows install is the
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four corners of this window does not get clamped down sufficiently enough in some rare cases
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where it actually leaks so to prevent that and make this installation easier i've
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decided to go with socket head cap screws so what i'm using is the hillman
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m4 0.70 by 12 millimeter it's like a socket head cap screw
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now in my engineering days when i was designing parts
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i would use socket head cap screws almost exclusively because it's really easy way to
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uh work on parts that you design take them apart assemble them assemble them
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together and i really like them they kind of have
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like a little uh i'm not sure if you can see they have like a little knurl pattern they accept a three millimeter
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uh allen wrench to screw them in and
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in my case the way i'm designing this van i need to take this window out multiple times i
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need to put it in to clamp down on a trim ring that's going to be glued into the van
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then i need to disassemble it put in an interior panel trace out my section
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and then cut it out and then re-assemble the window back into the van so i guess only two times
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however in doing that if you use the standard screws
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from sierra lawrence the problem is you're not able to
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trying to re-chase the threads all that you cut into the aluminum with these
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they're more they're very very coarse threaded screw it makes it really challenging to
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you know retrace those threads when you reassemble the window if you have to so what i'm doing is kind of going back
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to my engineering routes and drilling and tapping holes so there's a standardized hole for every part around the trim ring
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and we don't have this everything getting out of adjustment when we go from here to the
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van what i'm talking about is the adjustment is this ring as you see
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this is exactly how it came out of the box and even though this uh
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gopro lens distorts things this uh
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radius right here there's like a it dips and then it bumps up and turns around so it's not a perfect
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um it's not a perfect curve and then you have this much that needs to be put
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together so this is really wobbly and this is also another reason why when people use this wobbly trim ring to cut
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out their hole for the window the hole is typically too big for the window
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and the window fits but you lose the surface uh ceiling area
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you lose the surface area to seal the window to the van and that allows you to have water leaks
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and if you don't have your trim ring seated properly and clamp down into four corners you're
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more likely to get water leaks so what we're doing is we're taking our trim ring
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we're putting it onto the frame and then we're going to set a home
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position for one screw in a home position for this top screw here we're gonna lock that into place
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gonna make sure this is nice and flush on the side with a good seating uh
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good seat so we're not pinching on top of this frame we're seated very well
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and then as we come along this left side we'll be able to bend this back in over here
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so that we can get this gap closer see if i let go this
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whole thing bends out so we have to do to fix that
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is we'll have a couple of these clamps and we'll be able to come on the inside
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of this window without actually damaging anything
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and we can come in and we'll be able to come in and conform this
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to our window frame and hold it into place and that way once everything gets seated
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we will drill all of our holes to be able to tap a m4 by .70 hole
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you need two things you need a
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3.3 millimeter drill bit you can find it at any bolt and tool shop where they sell
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anything to you know drill and tap with look a little front i find like a local store you're not going to find something like this at home depot or lowe's
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or you can buy it online it'll come in a plastic case uh
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sort of like this and the m4 uh
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i'm sorry the drill bit will be separate 3.3 millimeter drill bit
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and you can find charts online that will tell you what drill bit matches up with the
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specific tap that you want to use so this one that we're using is an m4 .70
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and inside here you'll get a little you'll have you'll have your tap and it has all these little uh
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cutouts and basically this is what chews through the aluminum and makes those threads
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not sure if that's in focus um chews through those threads so this is
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what we're going to be using but you need to have a tap kit to be able to mount this tap
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into a device so that when you that has also a t-handle so that when
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you go you can actually cut those threads into your window frame
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so this is separate you may be able to find this at lowe's home depot you can also buy just a cheap
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tap kit from harbor freight and that harbor freight tap kit
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it might have a different thread pitch than these screws the only reason i'm using the thread
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pitch 0.70 is because this is all that they had at
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lowe's and what you want to do is you want to take a
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pair of calipers and you want to measure this screw from c.r lawrence
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and you're trying to find you're trying to find something that is
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you're trying to find to think the closest the screw that is the closest to what uh
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cr lawrence provides and so what i've done is the top screw
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is the sierra lawrence supplied screw i believe it's 15 millimeters long
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and it has a diameter of uh four millimeters and then the cycle head cap screw that i
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bought and we'll be using in this window is m4 by 0.70 like i said 0.70 is the
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thread pitch so that is the pitch of the threads right here
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so you can see the cr lawrence one is very coarse and this is very fine
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um so this is going to be able to mount the window better now it is more challenging
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because you have more uh room to mess up with these fine threads
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when you cut the threads with this tap so you gotta be very careful but
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the benefit of this is that you will now have a hole to which you can
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drill tap and then you can put loctite on this screw and secure it into the window frame and
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you'll know that the window frame is very secure in the van you don't have to worry about anything
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loosening up on you so that's the other benefit
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so the the first challenging part of this whole thing is to get some clamps out
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and these clamps will allow you
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to make sure that you find a i keep calling it a home position
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and that's just a means that the trim ring is around this whole thing
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very evenly and it's distributed evenly some problems that people have online
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when they're doing the diy route and they're mounting this window
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is they'll start drilling this they'll put the window in the van after they cut the hole out they'll start drilling these holes and by the time they're over
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here they're so off that this ring
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it's very hard to meet up and you might even have a gap like this so you don't want you don't have any gap
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here because this is designed to be nice and tight so what i do is i find one side that's
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really good and i get it nice and tight on the frame and then what i'm going to do up here at
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the top is i'm actually going to clamp it down
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not with a lot of force just enough force to keep it so it doesn't move
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because remember this is aluminum so we don't want to mess it up and then i come over here
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and then i want this to stay and not move same thing
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you want to find these clamps that have these rubber protectors on them
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and i have to get a better angle so it looks like i'm going to have to
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go a little bit wider
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there we go be careful this is aluminum so this stuff will scratch very easily
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uh and don't put a lot of force because this i'm actually touching the glass so we don't want to
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this is only just glued on here so just very little for very little force just enough to this hole doesn't move this
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will just move and this side stays where it's supposed to be
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and what we're going to do is we're going to forget about this side over here um we can go over and just double check
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that we get enough room to yep that's perfect
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do that so as long as this can come over and come in flush
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you're okay because what we want to do first is drill and tap this hole this hole
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so that we can take the clamps off of this side so what i'm going to do is i'm getting
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ready to drill my hole you want this window on a soft surface
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but be aware that when you drill holes you're going to get aluminum filings
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all over the place so what i've done is i've taken my dyson vacuum and i put a very fine nozzle on here so i can go in
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and i can actually suck out any of the aluminum filings that are
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down there in that hole so the first step is we're going to take this drill bit the 3.3 millimeter and
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we're going to find there's a groove in here so
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maybe hard to see but there is a there's a channel right in here
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and in this channel that is where the screw goes into
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now notice on this window the way they manufacture it they do not pre-drill any holes so when you take the crl
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screws you're essentially taking a screw and forcing it to cut through the aluminum
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frame to make its original hole
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i don't like that so that's why i'm doing this method and also because
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you know i said i need to take this window out uh more than once so you'll find this channel
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channels like a v shape and then within these holes you'll also
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see where the v channel is so that v channel is what you want to drill into when you drill into this v channel
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you're going to go down and there's going to be a spot where you come out of the other side of it so
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you're going to go down into it and then you'll pop out the other side not through the full frame
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just the lip um so what i'll do is i'll try to stick some
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b-roll or some pictures in here to get a very detailed view of that so you don't mess up
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all right guys i'm going to show you on this part right here
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how we tap it so you guys can pretty much see a really good representation of this
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where the v this uh little v-notch is
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and right here this is that flange i'm talking about so when i talk about drilling through it you're going
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through here to here you're not you're not going through this bottom part you're just going right here and just grazing the side of the frame
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so when you drill down you're only going to drill down to about right there do not go through this
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because that goes to the outside of the window so from here to here
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it's no more than about a quarter of an inch from here to here so the next step that we're going to do
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is we're going to place our tap right here in the groove and we're just going to gently
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start turning and the tap is going to start biting into the middle
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there's going to be a certain point at which you're no longer going to be able to do it with your hands
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and you need to take your little uh
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makes it look like a cork remover and then continue
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and so you just continue doing it don't move side to side keep a nice vertical
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movement on here [Applause] and then the tap will go through
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and then keep going it'll get a little bit easier once it'll go it'll be a little tough and it'll get easy
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but be careful because when you start to get the end it'll stop and it's rubbing against
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it's bottoming out where the drill bit went so you know that's where you got to stop
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take this out and then just unscrew it really easy
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with your fingers here until it comes out don't force it at all
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just comes right out nice and easy and then you've tapped your hole go ahead and grab your vacuum
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remove your metal shavings then take your socket head cap screw
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and just go ahead and just double check your threads again don't force this
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you don't want to cross thread the hole you just made so screw that in and it should go in nice
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and easy and then it'll get to this uh area down here and it'll start to get hard
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that's where it bottoms out even though it's not touching the bottom this wall here starts to curve in like
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this so that's where this stops but we don't need to worry about that because
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we're using a washer and the thickness of the washer the thickness of the frame that clamps
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this window in and the thickness of the body of the van plus in our case
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the thickness of the flatline vanco trim ring is going to make up all that difference
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and we don't have to worry about bottoming out and cross threading our hole when we need to really clamp down on the
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window later so that is a
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detailed view of the of where the hole is tapped
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take your time aluminum is very soft metal much softer than steel if you've never
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done this before so take your time and if you do it right you're going to
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have a fully tapped window frame that's really easy to install
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take back out and then the best part is you can put a little bit of loctite on here
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when you're ready to finally put it in here and those threads are going to be nice and locked in there you don't have to
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use a lock washer and that window is going to be in place for a long time
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all right guys i'm going to give you one more high def shot of this
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4k going on here we've got our socket head cap screw we're going to tap this hole
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and just to show you guys what we're working with here
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if you look this is where we took our drill bit and we drilled right through here so we
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took our drill bit and we drilled through right to where we bumped into the
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part of the frame right here this part of the frame curves in
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so that's where it stops you do not want to go past that because below that is where
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the exterior of the frame begins so if you drill past this into this bottom part you're going
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to come out on the outside of the glass so you want to make sure you go from here
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to here and it's only about a quarter of an inch but this part right here as you can see that's where it bottoms
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out on that ridge of the aluminum frame
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okay so if i pull this out that distance right there that's the
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that's all of the distance that i want so once i've drilled that
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and my drill is taken out next step i'm going to do is take my tap
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i'm going to put it in the hole and i'm just going to start hand
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twisting this just turning it turning it by hand
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and i'm turning it until it just stops until i can't turn it by hand anymore and you'll feel that
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once you get there put your bar up here in the top and then continue
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you go right through that last piece of the metal it'll start to come out on the bottom side
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it'll start to free up a little bit and then right before it bottoms out you'll feel it
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it'll stop right there so it stops and you want to
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stop take the bar out and then just with your hand
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gently untwist unscrew the tap
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put your vacuum
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clean up the hole and then you want to take your socket head cap screw
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and just put it in there you can use put it with the washer or not um i just have the washer on there
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and then just fill it out to make sure it's what you want
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there might be a little bit of aluminum filings left over from the tap but once you come through this
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you're only going to go through it about uh you know the length of us the screw
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that's why i got 12 millimeters you're only going to go through it actually probably about eight or
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eight millimeters through that frame just enough to poke out the other side
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of this v channel once you've done that you're able to get your tap and then
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proceed to the next step so we have our drill here we're going to go ahead and
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find our hole and make sure everything's nice and even make sure the drill is extremely
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straight up and down don't wobble it side to side or you'll mess up your
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area for your threads we'll go through here get in the channel start drilling
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so i want to change drills i can't get a good grip on this drill
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all right do a little drill upgrade
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[Music] i like the other drill because this one is actually too powerful but
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it's the one we're going to use okay so put the drill in there
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[Applause] [Music]
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[Music]
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okay as soon as it falls through the first time you know you're done reverse the drill
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and then come back out and then what we're going to do next is
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we're going to vacuum out the aluminum shavings
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and then we're going to move on to our next hole over here
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so
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okay now that we get our two holes in position we know where they're at we can go ahead and release our clamps
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then we're going to just take our frame temp temporarily move it over here
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and then we'll come back through the vacuum
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keep it clean because you don't want to get those aluminum filings to scratch your glass um
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and try not to move your glass until the whole entire thing's done then lift it up all right so we've we've gone ahead and
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drilled our hole and again i will show
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some additional footage of how far i drilled that through
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the next step is to get our tap and you can take this out because
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it's nice to get go in and just do it by hand to get it started
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and you might you need to you'll want to practice on something else so don't don't practice on this window practice
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on a piece of metal or something like that figure out how this works because once you start cutting threads you're committed
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but i'm going to take it i'm going to put it right in this v groove where the hole was drilled and then i'm just going to start spinning it
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and it's going to begin to cut into my hole and eventually once it gets going
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you'll get to a point where
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then you've got a nice tight seam right here as long as it's not overlapping in this
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ridge and the left and the right then you're okay
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uh so this next part of the video is going to be just time lapse of me completing the trap taps
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drilling all the holes and then i'll finalize this
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with showing you a little clip of what it looks like in the van
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[Music]
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so [Music]
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you
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