swapping a bonded windscreen? Success, I think.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Cleaning and priming the screen carefully is essential; do also take care that the screen can't slip downwards, it may need some rubber packers at the bottom.

It's a mucky job but actually very easy once you've tried it.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Good work Dave_Numbers!!!! keep us posted. I can well imagine a windscreen costing €640 in france, totally ridiculous man.

 

Are you gonna be able to plug in your oscillating cutter at the scrapyard?

[Taff]

 

 

Are you gonna be able to plug in your oscillating cutter at the scrapyard?

 

I have absolutely no doubt* that this won't be an issue in a French scrapyard. Finding enough deep puddles to trail the flex through will be the only issue for Monsieur David

[dave21478]

I have built a 240v inverter into the back of the Landrover as I am quite often in need of power in the middle of nowhere while at work, so thats no problem as long as they let me take it into the yard. Its a quiet wee old-school place where you get bits yourself rather than a moder "dismantlers" with everything on shelf so I forsee no problems. Might even pull the dashboard out to facilitate cutting the bottom edge - there cant be a massive demand for Escort dashboards so they shouldnt mind.

[overrun]

Bought a screen for £60 for an old car years ago. Scoffed at people offering to fit for an extra £30. Put it in the boot fully supported. Drove home and heard a weird sharp noise from the back, which was the screen cracking right down the middle.

Had to put it in as I had already taken the old one out, and cracked it in three more places!

I bought the screen for my MR2 and had it fitted professionally on the weekend for £30. Don't be a skinflint by thinking you are saving money, it will probably crack.

Tried and failed to remove the screen from my AW11, too.

The bottom is nigh-on impossible, imo - and I had the dash and everything out.

[dave21478]

Part 2 of the operation didnt go quite as smoothly as planned, but I got there in the end!

 

No photos, sorry, as I was too flipping stressed to think about it.

 

Went to the scrappy with my brother in law and the dude let me in with the Landrover so I could use my inverter and mains powered shaky saw. Went to the Escort section and started on the first one with a decent screen.....took the wipers off, took the scuttle cover off, started pulling off the rubber trims down the sides of the screen and BiL cracked the screen....twat!

 

Ok, next car....repeat as above with more care. Started cutting out and I was fiddling with the plastic spacer blocks at the bottom of the screen and cracked it myself. TWAT!

 

Ok, third car...getting annoyed now....got the sides and top done ok with the saw, but it was flagging towards the end. I have since found out that one should ideally plunge the blade into cold water every few seconds to prevent it overheating and loosing its hardened edge.

The bottom edge was a massive war though - the saw was no use by then, all blades blunted and couldnt really get at the bottom due to the dashboard anyway so we resorted to long-bladed knives and lots of sweating. Took about an hour of repeated scoring along the bottom edge with the knife blade, stopping every few minutes to snap off the end to get a sharp point again, taking it in turns while the other ever so gently levered the top edge outwards to slowly open up the gap.

When it finally let go it made a bit of a chip in the very bottom edge about the size of a pound coin....meh, it will be out of sight under the sealant so I dont care.

I had filled the back of the Landrover with a big pile of old sheets and cushions to lay the screen on. Did you know that an Escort Windscreen is almost exactly the same size as the load area of a commercial Freelander? Neither did I....so BiL had to endure the journey home with my boy-racer subwoofer and amp on his lap as there was no fucking room for the screen if I left it in the back!

 

Anyway, at home and after a beer to relax I cleaned off the old sealant round the edge and now just need to wait for the adhesive to arrive. The Escort screen aperture had some rusty spots on it so I rubbed them down and bunged some silver hammerite on them.

 

Next it seems to just be a case of cleaning the mating faces with something like meths, wiping over with the primer, squirting the adhesive around the hole, placing the screen on and adding masking tape to prevent it slumping down.....seems easy enough.

My only question is about the side trim....should I fit them to the screen first and drop it on as a whole, or should I fit the screen, then fit the trims? iirc when I had screens changed by the professionals in the past they fitted the trim to the screen - the trim is a C-section that clamps around the very edge of the glass so might be tricky to work into place afterwards. Dunno....its not too crucial though, its only realy decorative and doesnt form part of the waterproof seal, so worst case scenario is to cut off the lip on the rear and just glue it in place afterwards.

[KruJoe]

What a bloody war!

Anyway, good to see progress is being made.

 

An idea to help minimise this 'slumping' problem when you drop the new one in: jack the front up to a daft angle, or put the front of the car on the trailer so the screen is closer to horizontal. The pull on it will be much less then.

[mat_the_cat]

/\ Good idea!

 

I'd fit the trim beforehand, it's the way I've always seen it being done. One of the fitters said that if they were forced to reuse the old trim they would ideally bond it on to the glass before fitting. This was on a screen removed for welding, so on a normal replace job they wouldn't have that option.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

If this isn't world-class shiting, I don't know what is. Great story davenumbers!!!!! How much did the scrappy charge for a secondhand screen???

[dave21478]

40 Euros, which I thought was entirely reasonable.

He never mentioned the ones I broke....although I am sure he knows about them. I doubt many people are stupid/tight enough to do this sort of thing so there certainly wont be much demand for windscreens.

 

I absolutely must get back with the camera.....some of the stuff in there was truly heart-breaking and its changed quite a lot since the last load of photos I took.

[oldford]

It's great what the professionals can do.  The windscreen company next door to us had a 15 plate XJ in, where the windscreen wasn't fitted correctly when the car was built, the trim along the top of it didn't line up correctly.

 

They cut the screen out and refitted it without causing any damage.  

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fuck!!!! Thats serious skill innit.

[Pillock]

I'm hoping Jaguar or the dealers were paying for that, a month-old lux-o-barge with a major component put in wrong! But yeah, I suppose it's all about knowing where you can and can't put force. Glass doesn't twist or fold very well but is surprisingly flexible in the right direction.

[twosmoke300]

Pillock is right . I remember watching touring cars when the civic type r was racing and you could see the screens flex on certain corners!

[Pillock]

I used to work with a lot of LCD screens, you can punch 'em in the middle all day long and not bust one, but the minute you tighten a corner screw when there's a cable across the back so it folds it..... Snap. Same reason those emergency hammers always need to be used on the corner of a window, you're trying to bend it and in the centre the elasticity is too great.

[dave21478]

Well, the glue arrived today so I did the deed this evening. I had done a "dry run" with the old screen and decided it would be best to fit the trim rubber to the screen before gluing it down.

 

The thing I bought was a kit that came with screen cleaning wipes, a tube of primer and the tube of glue, plus an instruction sheet usefully* written in German.

 

Cleaned up the glass and the car aperture with the cleaning wipes, ran the primer round the glass leaving it to dry for 10 minutes (I picked that much up from the instructions at least!) then put a bead of glue around the aperture. Its mega-thick stuff and my cheapo mastic gun made a bit of a meal of it, but got there in the end. I have to say....one tube was only just enough for the Escort....perhaps I put it on a bit thick, but preferred to err on the side of caution rather than have gaps.

Brother in Law came round and we dropped the screen into place. There are wee plastic wedges at the bottom that locate the screen and stop it drooping down and the rubber trims set the side-to-side positioning. Once it was in I bundled a big sheet up on the screen and ever so gently tightened up a ratchet strap I had fed through the doors to hold the screen lightly down in place.

 

I will get the scuttle and so on refitted later this evening. The tube reckons 2 hours before the car can be driven....I will be leaving it overnight anyway. With a bit of luck it wont crack going over the bump at the garage door and wont flop out onto the bonnet at the end of the street.

 

So....sense of achievement...yep.

Would I do it again?  not if I can avoid it.

But thats one more thing successfuly ticked off the list of stuff I have never done before.

[twosmoke300]

I've never done a bonded car window but I've done some on tractors and it's bloody nerve wracking . Esp when some tractor screens are nearly a grand!

[cobblers]

When sticking knockoff cheapo windows into the side of VW T4s that didn't have the right curve we used to park the van in the garage and hammer lengths of wood between the garage wall and the glass to bend it in at the corners, then leave it overnight to dry.

 

We've knocked blocks out of the wall before shattering a window!

[danthecapriman]

The guy that did the latest windscreen replacement on my work Sprinter van said it's better to use too much glue than too little.

My van has had loads of new screens in its short life so far and he reckons it's because the last lot that changed the previous screens (same company and fitter each time!) didn't put enough glue in so when the bodyshell flexed when loaded and driven eventually the glass just broke. The glue apparently helps cushion the glass against the frame.

 

Good job getting yours sorted though, and fair play for sticking it out to the finish.

[overrun]

I'm hoping Jaguar or the dealers were paying for that, a month-old lux-o-barge with a major component put in wrong! But yeah, I suppose it's all about knowing where you can and can't put force. Glass doesn't twist or fold very well but is surprisingly flexible in the right direction.

 

Mk6 Escort drivers door glass is very flexible.

When some piece of pondlife bent me door back, I couldn't believe the curvature!

[overrun]

Pillock is right . I remember watching touring cars when the civic type r was racing and you could see the screens flex on certain corners!

 

Are they not polycarbonate, like the Supertourers were?

[overrun]

My Mondeo is on at least it's third screen, after 160K.

 

I bought it with a cracked Pilkington. Then had another Pilkington (iirc) fitted, but the O/S heated screen wiring got wrapped around the wiper linkage and torn out, resulting in only one side of the screen heater working.

 

So, screen number two in my ownership (warranty job) and fuck knows how many before.

[twosmoke300]

Are they not polycarbonate, like the Supertourers were?

Possible but I was always told that the bonded screen is part of the chassis strength on a modern car and I can see them wanting to loose that .

[Taff]

Possible but I was always told that the bonded screen is part of the chassis strength on a modern car and I can see them wanting to loose that .

 

the MGF fraternity will tell you that the windscreen is "structural".  While I accept it adds some small degree of strength to the frame, I'm not convinced that "structural" is the right word for it.

[Pillock]

Gavin from Autoglass used to harp on about that too. I suppose it keeps everything else in line and the rest of the car is designed around having it there, in one piece. Can't see a stone chip causing you to veer into a bridge support at 70mph though.

[oldford]

Bonded glass substantially increases the torsional stiffness of the body.