HOW TO: Fix your leaky windshield (3 Viewers)

[NerdNoise]

Here's what I did.

I took my truck to a windshield shop and had them pop the windshield out. Then I took the truck to a body shop and had them media blast the rust off the bottom where all of the rust was and then they also built it up with professional body glue and that's how I did it. Total cost $97.

 

[huge]

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.

 

[Kernal]

That is a funny story and you described it well. Welcome to Mud (Mud salute).

 

[e9999]

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.

could have been worse, he could have use cow dung or some such thing instead of high tech silicone...


adhesive tech content: bull crap is stickier than cow dung...

 

[firetruck41]

Ha! Great story! Hope you get it sorted before too much rain...

 

[CycloSteve]

I found a local auto glass shop which knew exactly the issues with Cruisers, including the fact that most aftermarket windshields are not installed right...just like mine.

The good news is that the seal on mine was in very good shape, and they suggested re-sealing things in place. My minor "pooling" of water between the windshield and seal is now gone...as are the little drips on the feet.

Well worth the $65 to have someone do this.



Steve

 

[e9999]

I found a local auto glass shop which knew exactly the issues with Cruisers, including the fact that most aftermarket windshields are not installed right...just like mine.

The good news is that the seal on mine was in very good shape, and they suggested re-sealing things in place. My minor "pooling" of water between the windshield and seal is now gone...as are the little drips on the feet.

Well worth the $65 to have someone do this.



Steve

what did they do exactly?



eh, Ben, on your fix, how did you clean the excess sealant that oozed out from under the rubber seal? cut? solvent?

 

[YoterGuy]

the po of my truck had the windshield re-sealed a couple years ago but about a month ago it started leaking bad down both corners (almost a steady stream). Just after I had painted the roof, cowl, fenders, etc. due to clear coat peeling. So I must have broke the seal then . 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

 

[firetruck41]

what did they do exactly?



eh, Ben, on your fix, how did you clean the excess sealant that oozed out from under the rubber seal? cut? solvent?

I used a razor blade to "cut" a line along the edge of the seal, then scraped the excess off. That left a nice clean edge.

FYI, still no leaks!

 

[firetruck41]

the po of my truck had the windshield re-sealed a couple years ago but about a month ago it started leaking bad down both corners (almost a steady stream). Just after I had painted the roof, cowl, fenders, etc. due to clear coat peeling. So I must have broke the seal then . 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

Glad it worked for ya!

 

[NLXTACY]

So after two years of dealing with the leaking window, and two years of having the adhesive collecting dust on my shelf, I finally took an hour to do this. It's 78deg today and I'm in shorts and flip flops so I figured today is the day I finally do this. I followed Firetruck's instructions except that after I was done filling in the adhesive I put on a pair of latex gloves and removed all the big wads of adhesive. The adhesive itself flows so no worries about streaks or fingerprints. Looks like it will be easier clean up now. I'm going to let it dry for a few days before I remove the tape. It's supposed to rain tomorrow but not too worried since its garaged.

 

[CycloSteve]

what did they do exactly?

I am not sure of the exact product used, but they injected sealant between the glass and seal, plus the seal and frame. I actually have a brand new OEM gasket, and if this does not work, it is ready in the wings. So far no water after sitting out in the rain for 24 hours.



Steve

 

[e9999]

So, am I guessing correctly that for those of us who did not have any sealant in (as in a bad replacement job) and who are now putting sealant only on the glass side, that the windshield and rubber seal would still (easily?) separate from the body by prying the (sealantless) seal off the metal, regardless of whether the seal is now firmly affixed to the glass?

 

[NLXTACY]

Oh yeah, I was easily able to pull up the windshield seal. There was zero adhesive I could see at any spot that I pulled it up.

 

[western flyer]

Good job Joey!

 

[mickeyt]

How about Flex Seal for this?

 

[firetruck41]

How about Flex Seal for this?

I wouldn't waste my time or money with it. It is doubtful it will adhere to the glass for long. You need a polyurethane adhesive. The one I recommended in the original post was about $10, and available at the big box home improvement stores. It is holding strong 3+ years later.

 

[NLXTACY]

Finally trimmed the excess away from the windshield. Important note to the next person doing this: make sure the tape is NOT under the seal. After trimming I noticed some of the blue tape is sealed under the new gasket. Oh well. The other thing that bugs me is the polyurethane is glossy and you can see where it runs on the gasket. I'm also hoping that when it fully cures it won't pull lint from paper towels. Another ugh. But windshield is sealed so

 

[firetruck41]

Good points. I had some space (1/4"?) between the seal and the tape line. I did not put any adhesive on the outside of the seal, just underneath, between the seal and the glass. Then once the adhesive was dry, I used a razor to cut a clean line even with the seal, and then used the flat edge of the razor peel up the excess between the seal and where the tape was. There is really no need to have any adhesive on the outside of the seal. Sorry I did not mention that before.

 

[e9999]

was thinking that one possible drawback of this fix would be if the seal can't be removed from the glass without being damaged. For instance you'd be on the road and lose the windshield. You would normally hope that somebody would have an aftermarket windshield that would fit, but would they have the fancy OEM seal if the existing one were to be destroyed when pulling the old glass out? I imagine that the glass guys normally reuse the old seal, no? Or do they always stock glass and seal together? So, having a fairly mild adhesive -is polyurethane one?- might be best?