Hi everyone.
This is my first post in the forums here, but i have been using the 'mud' forums now for about a month to do a front axle rebuild and diff swap on my 96 lx450. That in mind, i have not had to make a request for help yet, as i believe this forum has covered nearly every aspect of restoring the front end of the drive train so well. Now enough smoke in bums & down to the point.....
I live in Cambodia, now for 8 years, and have seen more ingenious ways to fix things here than anywhere in northern australia where I cut my teeth on heavy CAT gear, toyota's and Cessna's.
Recently i was at my favourite little local beach kitesurfing with some pretty girls looking on and decided to jump over the car front to back with the kite, to demonstrate exactly how cool I actually am. Can you guess the outcome yet?
So I NEARLY made it, but as my feet were flailing helplessly in the air, and moving over the roof at about 30kph my heel hit the very top lip of the windshield at the seal and promptly huge arcing spider web like cracks appeared where my once pristine w/s resided.
(video is somewhere on youtube)
So my wife cut off my left one and ate it, and after that i went down the main street and found a panel shop with a concrete floor, (rare over here) and asked how much, and a surprising response of $85 was received with suspicion. Little was i to know that there are literally dozens of windshield glass types you can install here, the most common being the un-coated shattering kind! Found that out after the new one was installed, lesson #1. (The real deal is somewhere in the area of $260
I came back the next day to have the work done and watched the whole process, and decided almost immediately that this was NOT the way to do it. I should have just used the forums! (cambodian recommendation only!)
The guy went around the whole windshield with a stanley knife and severed the shield seal along the seal line into 2 matching pieces, proceeded to put in the new screen on top of the old seal (well the half that was still there) without sealant, then lay the new shield on top (without even cleaning the tape marks off the new shield) and after using about 2 tubes of clear silicone sealant around the edges of the new shield he promptly placed the other half of the seal on top and pushed down on it, not uniformly around the shield, but at what seemed like totally random intervals and sides of the seal. When the seal on top kept popping up from the silicone sealant and away from it's (ex) other half, he would take out his trusty roll of selotape and whack some over that part, only to have the part next to that pop up in retaliation for the un-natural methods this useless tit was employing.
In the end, the front end of my car looked like my 5 year old son's pre-school art and crafts project. 2 rolls of tape later, and with the door selotaped shut due the tape not sticking (he jammed the un-sticky sticky tape into my drivers electric window and wound it up, leaving me having to get in the passenger side door to drive or I would take the pressure off the tape and in turn the rubber seal would detach again from it's mediocre joining with the new shield and old 2nd half of the seal
He told me in 24 hours, i would be right as rain.
right I was not.
rain it did.
all in my car.
I knew that this guy was going to bodge it from far too many more experiences like this over my time here with motorbikes, only recently have i discovered that owning a car here makes this infuriating experience a more expensive, and frequent infuriating experience.
So even with all this going on he looks at me when finished with the biggest smile you could imagine, totally unaware that he just created a monster, as he was truly under the impression he had done an amazing job, and saved me so much time and money by his poor attempt at being macgyver.
I couldn't help but forgive him for trying and gave him his $5 labour cost (80 was for the shield i had paid direct to the windshield shop) and as i was getting in the passenger side to drive away, i smiled to myself and swore to always have a go myself first using the iH8Mud forums and my (soon to be acquired) trusty FSM. If this post is too long or inappropriate i apologise in advance. just thought it made for a good yarn, and also give people who use iH8Mud forums for advice but are afraid to get 'hands on', a bit of confidence that they are definitely not the least capable mechanics around, as I have met him, and from his methods and the amphibious result............................ I don't think he uses this forum.
(Mud salute).
feet.
. I called a professional even though I had read firetrucks post I wanted it done right. The professional told me to do the same thing as firetrucks post stated. He said he would do it for $50. So I did it myself and have been leak free since then, and we have had a lot of rain and cold temps. Very happy with the outcome
