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This is the single biggest thing that bothers me about this car.
When my nephew blew up the engine in this car he pulled it into his dads garage to replace the engine. I'm not sure why his dad pulled off the windshield trim, but he found rust in the corners and across the top. Before his son knew it he broke the windshield pushing it out with his feet and cut out the top of the windshield frame. So, new windshield, windshield frame corners and top. The trim would not lay flat so he filled the gap with rtv. Any ideas of what went wrong. Can it be remedied without mortgaging the house. Otherwise it's going to end up a rat rod with a dished windshield.
If the top corners of the frame were put back in wrong , wouldn't the door window glass not fit properly ? Hard to see from the pics but it looks like the drivers door glass fits ok.
IF the metal replacement was done right , Could this just be a case of the replacement (thinner) glass not installed correctly ?
Need more pics from further back of the whole screen and both door glass to see
This place on a C3 Corvette it the most screwed up on all the cars I have looked at. I spent hours looking at Corvettes at Carlisle over the six years I went, and very very few of these have a neat / perfect intersection of glass, trim and corner pieces. Most are lifted up unevenly across the front, and most do not fit well in the corners. It takes a lot of careful work and persistence to get this area as well done as it should be. New windshields being thinner than stock does not help. I am not entirely satisfied with mine, but its far better than most. Alan71 car is what I consider perfect.....few are that nice.
The windshield needs to be spaced away from the frame. Factory used thick adhesive to put it in place. You need to use spacer blocks to keep it from sinking too close to the frame until it hardens.
When I had my windshield replaced about 15 years ago I used Safe-lite. That's right, they had the glass back then and came to my house to install it. I had the original windshield around to check if there was any difference between the original and the new one. The new one was a little thinner but not that much.....maybe 1/8 at the most.
I was concerned that the windshield would fit too far back as the factory used butyl bead tape to install it and that was pretty thick. I talked to the Safe-lite guy with my concern and it turned out he was a muscle car dude and was the local Safe-lite old car installer. He knew what he was doing and created a nice thick bead with his glue gun and mine is perfect. Maybe that is what your seeing, too little of adhesive?
It's easy to get the right gaps if you plan it out. I replaced mine in my garage myself this past winter. The original 69 glass was .275" thick and the replacement glass was .205". I used a 3/8" thick (and 1/4" wide) piece of damming tape instead of the original 5/16" butyl tape between the glass and the W/S frame to get it right. I test fit everything a couple of times before sealing it down with modern urethane sealer/adhesive. The above pics look like someone just sealed down the glass directly on the frame then filled the large gaps left between the glass and the trim.
Last edited by CanadaGrant; Jul 3, 2018 at 12:40 AM.
I agree with the windshield was set too deep. When you replace the upper corners of the windshield frame it certainly does not move the A pillars, the couple I did you don't even remove the top header bar, just the glass side outer corners. If anything you could lose top bar alignment because it dropped or got raised up somehow but I'm not seeing that here. BTW, pretty sure the factory did not use butyl tape. I use it though with a combo of urethane, makes for a clean and precise at home one man installation.
Wow you guys are the best. I have this car because of this. My nephew stopped working on this car because he thought it had a problem that could not be fixed and traded it to my wife for some furniture. This is the reason I was going to turn it into a rat rod instead of giving it a regular paint job. Now I will try to reset the windshield. I saw the installation video that derekderek posted on a different thread and it seems like something I can do. Now I'm torn because I was kinda looking forward to making something different. I guess I'll do a regular interior rebuild so I can go either direction on the exterior.
Thanks for everyone's insight it is much appreciated
David
Sorry for chiming in late on this but if you search "windshield" you'll find more info on this. Everyone above that mentioned the fact that the replacement windshields is correct, they are all to thin! Combine that with the fact that the windshield will sink in the urethane sealer if spacers are not used... you've got a double edge sword. Two issues, the sealant used and the fact that the windshields not as thick as the original. The last thing you want between the moldings and the windshield glass is RTV. this will not allow the water that seeps above the windshield molding to drain out and it'll just hold it there against the frame... which will in time eat it out again. You can read about this at this link http://repairs.willcoxcorvette.com/1...-installation/
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Dished windshield - any ideas what went wrong
