Ok and here is a serious C3 windshield repair link for you:

C2 & C3 Corvette windshield frame rust repair (motortrend.com)

These guys are fearless, eh?

Thought for you. These guys butt welded their repair patches. On the 68 I am (still) working on, I made 1st patch piece slightly longer with holes on each end, slide in with magnet, & pop riveted the ends to new 1/8" holes in the OEM windshield frame good metal. I next cut my 2nd patch panel to exactly fit the hole. So, now I have a double patch thickness and the welder has a backer plate (the 1st patch) to tie into which we think gives a stronger repair. After welding is done, you can POR15 putty fill the rivet holes or go back and weld over if you like. My welder had fixed all kinds of 30's and 40's hot rod windshields and told me my 4 or 5 patch sections was nothing compared to what he had fixed. So, I suppose all is relative, ha! If you can find a welder who does the 30's and 40's hot rod repairs you would be way ahead I think. Hope this might help.

 

Great article merc.
That frame looked much worse than Glen's and they saved it.
Nice clean job too.

 

My local well respected corvette shop had a suggestion for mine that I am still considering. Mine looks like yours except my lower horizontal corners are also bad, where yours look very solid.

Your frame basically looks very solid.

This is an easy repair that he would do for a driver car, not a resto: Cut out (dremel) the rusty areas till you have good metal. Then use 3M Industrial structural epoxy in qt sizes to fill & level the voids. On new cars they glue a lot of the body panels together. These compounds have gotten really good. In comes in quarts and has an air powered caulking gun style applicator. Couple hours....DONE.

 

I am loving all these suggestions.
Thank you.

And I totally understand the thinking concerning repair vs. replace.
If I could weld I would be tempted to go that route but I don't have those skills

So here is the current plan. I have access to a good used windshield frame through a local corvette guy. We are going to cut it out of the car this coming week.
Then he has a guy who he claims is excellent at fitting and welding who is going to pick up the car from me on Wednesday.
We are also ordering the new windshield to have that available during the fitting and welding of the new/used frame. The windshield will be installed
immediately after the frame is repaired by a local expert. Finally, if fiberglass had to be cut on the upper fenders (we are hoping to, but will if we have to,
my corvette guy will do that. Then the car will come home.

At that point, based on how the repair comes out, comes the critical decision on how and if to proceed from here

Glenn

 

Well, my friends, after a few days delays the car is off for surgery
The surgeon said he will send me pics of the process so looking forward to posting them here

 

Harvesting a parts windshield frame





Now it is off to the sandblaster

 

Back from the sandblaster and the replacement part turned into a dud.


With all the gook off, it turns out the part was previously repaired, and repaired poorly






Back to the drawing board.

 

the upper frame is pretty good and the lower pieces look ok. it is the butcher weld job looks like i did it. (self-taught backyard a-hole welder...) i would consider cleaning up those 2 welds and proceeding with that frame.

 

Didn't I see "insert pieces" somewhere that go inside so you can weld to that rather than trying to butt weld that back together?

 

So how thick can this be used?
I am assuming you are saying to put this as a skim coat on the surface,
but could you also use this inside the A Pillar?

 

I am not welding it.
However, the more I am looking at it tonight, the more I am tempted to fix the existing surround
My usual body guy / welder is unavailable.
He would be able to put in pieces and not have to section anything.
The others I know are prohibitively expensive and booked

 

Wait for your regular guy.

 

I wish.
He is having back surgery and unavailable in the near and distant future

 

Damn.

 

Greg, I am going to go after it myself tomorrow
I wish I had a sandblaster but don't

What rust should I cut out?
With what? Dremel?
Wire wheel everything?
My goal is to show a potential welder what he is up against

 

with what you have in the car, a HF sand blaster is only another few bucks. hell, run to the beach for sand. and the more i look at it, the less scary it looks. since it is a coupe, it is braced up top. maybe wire wheel it down and goop it up. JB or similar. bodywork the goop to accept the windshield and drive it. then at a later date consider doing or have it done right. the windshield didn't fall out the way it was. it won't fall out (or in) after a bubbaesque repair...

 

Use a 4 inch grinder with a cutting wheel. Cheap at HF. Then use a dremel for the smaller and more delicate cuts. Slower but more precise. You may want the medium sized dremel, not the 6 inch one.
I looked up a spec sheet on the 3M stuff.Found it online. I am not exactly sure that is the # of the stuff my corvette shop recommended. But he did say 3M. I would get some guidance / recommendations from someone like 3M on that. The stuff I found remains "pliable" and has excellent attachment "strength". I see no reason why you could not just fill up the frame voids with that or something similar. If you fill it I would fil it all, so water will not get in there and puddle and cause problems later.
These originally had a drain path for water, but it tended to trap water and collect under the lousy 70 era windshield attachment ribbon and it's poor seal, and also on the flat spot on top of the door frame pillar at the bottom of the windshield. That's why those areas are the most commonly rusted out, trapped moisture. My OEM windshield ribbon/seal was still attached to the metal windshield frame for only one 9 inch section, dead center on the bottom. All of the rest of it just lifted off the frame. And it trapped water underneath and was rusted everywhere it was not attached. Either surface rust or holes.

My concern on my car is the inside voids are significantly surface rusted on my car. And I have no idea how to mechanically clean them well enough to get good adhesion of the epoxy. Sandblasting the inside would require opening a lot of it up. The 3M spec sheet says it can be used over primer. So I was thinking of coating the inside with something before the epoxy.

So yeah I have given this a lot of thought but still have not worked out all the details yet. I too would rather not cut off my entire frame for the possible fitment reasons mentioned above.

 

Glen,
I agree, start by just wire wheeling the whole thing down as clean as possible. This alone will make a world of difference. If you already have a grinder/cut off wheel and a Dremel tool and your skills are good enough to cut out the rusted areas very nicely, like in Merc's video, then go for it. If not, don't be afraid to let a welder see it with the pieces that still need to be trimmed. As long as it's clean and bare any decent welder will be able to determine how much needs to be trimmed away.
One word of caution on the epoxy/filler type products. This may be OK to smooth a rough surface at the end of the job but I would be very reluctant to use as a filler inside the A pillar. If any remaining rust inside (which will always be present) becomes aggressively active again, you really run the risk of bloating, distortion and separation if there's no where for it to expand.
Keep us posted on your progress brother.
Greg

 

Hi Leigh! Here is what I do for internal rust. Did this on a few C3 frames, windshield frames and elsewhere. Not perfect but better than nothing. I have found you can easily rationalize C3 rust problems by telling yourself these autos have only rusted what you see today over the course of 50 years. So if you do anything to remedy and not likely you are going to store outside in the future anyway, the odds are very good it will be good for another 50 yrs,

Eastwood Internal Frame Anti-Rust Coating, 14 oz. Spray


The real value in this kit is the tiny brass sprinkler head. After I used up all the Eastwood paint, I bought several cans of Rusteloem (sp?) Rust Converter from Walmart, converted the Eastwood fitting to the Walmart can spray fitting, got longer tubing if needed (for a frame for example) from Walmart fish aquarium dept, and sprayed internally until dripping out everywhere (nasty job this is, particularly when working overhead, ha!). When the can empties, flush out the sprinkler with air and then WD40 or something to clean. The Rust Convertor paint does a pretty good job of sealing the rust from what I can determine. I also tape the sprinkler head to a wire to help feed when needed and to better control.

Hope this helps from down here in Cajun land. And obviously any welding over where you painted is going to burn the paint off on the inside but elsewhere I think this will greatly help. Glenn has a number of access points prior to weld repair patches to help the rest of the frame.

 

Thanks! See that makes more sense to me. Protect the inside and the outside. Add new metal. Convert the rust.
I use that stuff on my main frame. And would like to use it on the windshield as well.
I like my local corvette shop but we have a difference of opinion on this point. Well he did qualify it as for a "street car"
They proposed the epoxy for my car. But I would be too concerned about the rust re-blooming, and/or any tendency to trap moisture.
But maybe (likely) I am just being to OCD and it would be just fine. You know for 20+ years or so! But 50? LOL