Hello, I am now the proud owner of a 76' black corvette. The car is in wonderfull shape, except for a very rusty windshield header. The chips fall on the console and floor with every bump in the road. I have not removed the inside molding for inspection yet, for fear it wont go back on. I plan to repair this problem this winter and wish to have all the advice I can get. What am I in for? Is there any written documentation on this repair available?

 

When I purchased my vette it leaked from the upper windshield frame support area. The only choice I had was to remove the upper stainless t-bar. Their was a lot of rust but the tracking was ok. The sealant in that area was the worst job I have ever seen. The area was stripped down , repaired, primed painted and then re-weathersealed. This job was not too bad but if I left like it was it could have caused the framing to be replaced. Good Luck :chevy

 

Time for a new Vette, I will bet you that your Vette has Rot everywhere. You should have checked with this forum before you bought.

 

anything with a motor,

Welcome to the forum, where "almost" everyone is helpful.

Since I have a C2, I'll step aside and let some of the C3 guys help you out....but welcome anyway.

 

Hello 73-454, Fortunately, you would loose that bet. My mother always told me: If you cant say anything nice, then dont say anything at all. Good advice.

 

Ed T, thanks for the link, very appreciated. Thats a good start.

 

67 Heaven, thanks for the welcome, the positive replies have already made up for the negative one. I hope to have more, (positive).

 

I'll give you another positive one...
You WILL be glad you found this place. It's invaluable and you will need info from time to time - welcome!
If you have rust falling down then that header bar is most likely rusted right through. This is NOT unusual. They sell a new center piece and also the corners. Hopefully the rust doesn't extend any farther than that. You can also buy a good original piece from a salvage yard at a better price. It's still going to be a pretty big job as yopu have to remove the windshield.
Lots of members here have done it so ask questions as you go if you need it!

 

Welcome, windshield frame rusting is fairly common and can be repaired. You probably want to look as soon as possible to see the extent of the rusting. The sooner you get at it the easier it'll be to repair. You've found a place with a wealth of information and advice, I hope your experiences here will be as good as mine have been.

Scott

 

Take the covers off and have a look. I had rust falling from mine also, but when I took the pillar and header covers off, it was actually the metal backing on the trim pieces that was falling off, the header wasn't so bad.

AC

 

Not a very nice way to greet a new member. Getting close to iggy time.

Anyway, welcome to the forum.

 

Hey Ed,
ME too!

Anything w/Motor, I've got the same problem. Some bubba decided to remove the chrome around the windshield, and quit after tearing up the seal. He/she then drove the car while to leaked water behind the header cover... Not as bad as yours sounds but I did have to clean big chunks-o-rust out before rust-o-leuming it.
I'd recommend pulling the header off and seeing how bad it is so you can start planning your attack now...

Welcom aboard :cheers:

 

Welcome to the forum,
Lot of good info and web pages here...If you can post some pics a lot more people will chime in also. If you need help posting them e-mail me and I will help you out.
Do remove the pillars and see what you got. Looking forward to helping each other.
Neil in Tenn

 

Thanks Ed T,
I already have the same book coming, in fact I expect it to arrive this week. Appreciate the offer. Thanks again....

 

Any, Welcome to forum, when I bought my '72 convertible I noticed right off that someone had repainted the windshiled A pillars the same as the car, color change....so I knew it should be in good shape, it had been caught in time and blasted/painted/resealed...but not good enough....
at any rate the inner liners were the rusted out originals, and I replaced them the steel backing as someone else mentioned was rusting away, and that's what I saw....alarming to say the least, but I got lucky....

NOW the bad news....take it all apart completely, chrome off topside, and inner liner panels....unfortunately you will probably see a sea of rust....depending on how bad, you may just want to sand it down, put some naval jelly on it, and then seal it up best as possible, meaning water tite completely and reseat the chrome in a sea of RTV black, and wipe area clean,

the best way would be to sand blast it, but that would require taking car apart allmost all the interior, etc....huge job....

IF you are terribly unlucky, the windshield will have to come out, count on a new one....and the frame replaced/repaired....
it is possible to get a used unrusted frame from midway between the door hinges to the back hoop.... about 3-4 hundred bux worth....and weld it in....
but that required removal of the front fenders and tons of glass work and such.......it can get real ugly real fast.....
a bad sign is seeling rust stains all around the windshiled edges especially where the VIN tag is....

GENE

 

I'm going to be pulling my winsheild out in a month and repair the rust from my sharks windsheild frame. The windsheild need replacing anyways.
Dan

 

and good luck with the car!!!

 

Hey Motor, believe it or not I found a bit of rust in my Vette as well. Probably should never have bought it and should probably follow 73-454's advice now....but ain't gonna happen. Although a newbie myself, the best advice I can offer is DON'T panic. Your car is probably not in any danger of falling apart any time soon so don't rush out and order parts and line up body work. MRVETTE had some good advise about how to approach the problem. You may also want to look into the POR line of products (I used them to repair my floor pans and am currently coating anything metal under my car with it).

If you decide you need to replace the windshield frame, wait until you have had the car a few months as other things may surface that you will want to have repaired and you can probably save time and $$ by having them all done at once. If you are thinking of having your car repainted sometime in the future you may want to wait until then for these repairs.

Also, spend some time searching the archives of this board, as well as the web sites of many of the members. I think you will find it is a friendly, knowledgable, and helpful bunch of Vette owners.

Good luck.


[Modified by RustyVette, 4:24 PM 5/28/2002]