Reseal Windshield & Rust Repair (need help please)
 

Since my intake manifold will be out for repair the next few weeks I started my winter project no. 3; pull the windshield, repair the rust & install a new windshield.

The trim molding came off fairly easy (I still had my trim clip tool that I used in the 60's). I cut the rubber gasket and pushed out the glass. I had to grind off the heads of 2 trim clip screws (that were rusted in place).

I found the lower steel windshield mounting section (I think it is part of the bird cage) has some rust holes in it (where rain tends to pool) :ack: and it appears to have been repaired in the past. I have it fairly well cleaned up and took a few pictures.

I need advice as to what I can do to fill the rust holes. I have it cleaned down to good steel. I was thinking of using a rust converter on the small areas I can't get to. Can I use some sort of filler for the holes or possibly fiberglass?

Thanks for your advice, Roy :thumbs:

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win1.jpg

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win2.jpg

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win3.jpg

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win4.jpg

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win5.jpg

http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win6.jpg

oh........that ain't looking too pretty is it?
Good thing you took the glass out and discovered it now so you can get that repaired up before it gets worst.

sorry, I can't help with the answer though

it will be tough to repair that with the fibberglass there, and dash still in the car. but if you are handy with a mig welder and a metal break you should be good to go

They say that "rust never sleeps." But I'm not sure I agree. If conditions promoting rust are gone, metal can become quite stable and last indefinitely.

One problem with trying to fix your rust problem "properly" is that you will probably damage the paint in the adjoining area. You might want to leave it until the car is ready for a repaint. In the meantime, you can stablize the situation to prevent it from becoming worse.

One thing I like to do in areas that are hard to reach is to spray in a rust preventative oil type treatment. Lloyd's makes one called AD3000. The stuff adheres well and helps prevent further damage. I like to spray it inside potential problem areas of a frame and similar locations. The problem with painting an area like that is that rust may keep on working behind the paint.

If the car lives in a garage, like most old Corvettes do, and never sees rain, you might get by for decades without having to cut out and replace the damaged area.

another good paint to use is Mar Hyde one step. converts rust to black primer

Roy,

As you might know, if you don't plan to paint, your finish is your # 1 concern in any thing you do as far as repairs. It won't "totally" help your problem by just treating the bottom or any other part of the WS frame channel on the out side only. To treat the steel right, you have to treat the inside too. Have you looked under the dash to see if the water has rusted into the opposing channel that is spot welded to the channel that you see? If it hasn't gone through, at least you have some integrity left in WS frame.(we hope) It is a very "messy" job, but you could insert a tube like the one I designed and under pressure, blast the inside with a rust neutralizer and then a rust encapsulator like Eastwood sells. The key here is, you have to cut off the oxygen to the steel! You could remove the bolts that hold your dash frame to the steel and maybe have a little room to get through the square holes with a 1/4 in. tube. The trick is to have a tube that sprays 360 degrees and that is why I designed my own. You would want to get through a hole off to each side so you could get up into the vert. section of the WS frame too. You could pull the header trim molding off at the top and get through those holes to flood the top section. I did all this to mine after I fit and welded new steel in, but I had a stripped car at this point, you don't. You have an interior to deal with, headliner, dash pads, rugs, under the dash goodies, a paint job, the list goes on. It could be done, it just depends on how far you want to take it. After the inside was neutralized and before an encapsulator, you good inject and epoxy like JB weld in those holes that you see now, you would have to back em somehow. I have even mig welded very carefully next to glass and paint like yours, but unless you know what your doing, I don't even advise that one! You have do lay down special heat absorbing pads and putty to pull and block the heat away from the glass and "ever so gently" trigger in your welds. If your interested in some of the above, you can go to vetteworksonline.com, go to Corvette restos and you'll find me. Read through some of the pics and you'll get the drift. Hope I've helped.
Craig ;)

My thinking is you will probably have to get the metal a lot cleaner to do much repair at this point. Possibly mask everything off and get in there and sand blast the channel. It willl still make a mess probably. Eastwood sells kits for leading in metal, including a low-lead (or something like that) type that I guess takes away a lot of the lead fume hazards. That might be the second best approach to making repairs, short of cutting out fiberglass and metal channel. The problem is what does the bottom side of the metal look like (underneath). If it's solid and not rusted leading in might be a pretty permanent repair.

Cmacsvette,
Did you get the new windshield frame parts from another Corvette birdcage or did you buy reproduction replacement parts?

Anybody sell repro windshield frame parts?

I salvaged them from a donor cage. I don't know if anyone is repro any parts. I even had to salvage the gutters back when. I had to also fab the termination ends at rear of gutters that weld to the lock pillar. Now they are poping gutters, not sure about ends. For all I know, they also could be poping WS frame channels.
Someone posted the company that was doing gutters, etc. I think it was John Z.
Craig ;)

Hi craig:
Thank you for the detailed information. That is quite a project you are working on. It should be a perfect car when you are finished.

I spent the day working on the rust and got it cleaned very well. I checked under the dash and it appears that the rust has not gone through to the mating/rivited part. I tapped it with a long punch and it felt very sound. I am taking your advice and will make a spray tube and loosen the dash frame bolts and to expose enough of the square holes to inject a rust neutralizer/encapsulator. Today I treated the exposed channel on top. I also removed the inside trim and gave a squirt in the vertical channels.

I think after reviewing my options I am going to take the shorter repair route and try using JB Weld to fill the holes. My main goal right now is to retard/stop the rust, fill the holes so I can install a new windshield and seal it properly. I just want to have it so if I do get caught in the rain there will be less water in the car than outside (we really got drenched at Carlisle this year). My paint is in good condition and I don't want to take any chances of damaging it.

I need to reseal where the fiberglass body meets the steel windshield (lower) channel. The assembly manual calls for a Plastisol Sealer. I am thinking of using "The Right Stuff" Gasket Maker by Permatex. It is described as a "heavy-bodied, black, electrometric rubber that provides an instant seal. Superior flexibility and adhesion accommodates joint movement. Excellent oil and transmission fluid resistance. Non-corrosive. Used on OE assembly lines. Temperature range of -75˚F to 450˚F". From the description I think it could be used to seal the gap.

As much as I would like to completely dissassemble my car and do a correct/complete repair, I just can't do that right now.
Roy :thumbs:

Roy,
Thank you. Also on that 1/4 tube, you can get it at the home depot. It's polyethylene tubing. Used for water to ice machines etc. This stuff melts great. I take a pair of pliers and clamp the tube, leaving approx 1/4 or less of tubing showing on the end. Take your propane torch and melt the end "good". Just below where your pliers were, is where you make the cuts. Take your Exacto knife and cut 4-6 slits in a diagonal (approx 30 degrees). So the slits now are off 30 deg of running longitudinally with the tube. Space the slits as even as you can around the tube. Your knife must be sharp so as to have nice clean slits. The slits should be 1/4- 3/8 long. I use a engine washing wand and modified it for the tubing and for the pressure pot.(valving etc.) You need good pressures to move the real thick stuff, 50-80 psi. Once you build this contraption ("and no they won't come") :lol: , you can experiment by spraying in a pipe or a rolled up piece of cardboard or whatever you can fine. You gotta keep your pressure up also for atomization of the material your pushing. Another tip, you do not need to fill the pressure pot up w/ tons of material, if this is what your using. Just put your material in a can, plastic bottle, the pot off your siphon gun, whatever you can sit inside the pressure pot and still get the lid on. You can even put the qt. can of material in the pot. Stick the pick up tube in, your like good to go.
BTW Por-15 has some good products that I like to use too. Just 2 cents. e mail me if you need help. Besure and protect your outside and in from whatever your doing and using. Good luck.
Craig ;

Roy
I had the same problem on a 69 a couple of years ago and went with the easy fix plan that you are doing.

I used Por-15, Por Patch and Por-15 Epoxy Putty to fix / fill small holes and cover rust pitting. The winshield frame turned out just fine.

While replacement with new / good frame parts might be the correct route to take, I didn't have the time/will/talent to take that on.

Hope this helps.

I finally got to finishing my window channel repairs and set the new glass today. Following the directions in the chassis service manual the glass went in very nicely. After that I started reinstalling the reveal molding. The lower moldings went very easily. The upper molding gave me 3 hours of fits :mad: . I had pre-fit all the moldings before installing the glass, but after the glass was installed there was no clearance between the upper clips and the weatherstrip. This made it a real pain to get the molding engaged properly in the clips :( . With the help of a friend we finally got the molding in. I still have one corner piece to fit properly and clean up the sealant mess.

The job is done, and I hope I never have to do this one again. The molding was a real pain in the a**. Every time I removed it to try and fit it better I made more of a mess with the sealant :cry . In any case it is done and I feel pretty confident it should not leak.
Roy :thumbs:

Lower channel repair with new clips.
http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win7.jpg

Upper channel with new clips
http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win8.jpg

New glass ready for installation.
http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win9.jpg

[QUOTE=67-427ci]I finally got to finishing my window channel repairs and set the new glass today. Following the directions in the chassis service manual the glass went in very nicely. After that I started reinstalling the reveal molding. The lower moldings went very easily. The upper molding gave me 3 hours of fits :mad: . I had pre-fit all the moldings before installing the glass, but after the glass was installed there was no clearance between the upper clips and the weatherstrip. This made it a real pain to get the molding engaged properly in the clips :( . With the help of a friend we finally got the molding in. I still have one corner piece to fit properly and clean up the sealant mess.

The job is done, and I hope I never have to do this one again. The molding was a real pain in the a**. Every time I removed it to try and fit it better I made more of a mess with the sealant :cry . In any case it is done and I feel pretty confident it should not leak.
Roy :thumbs:

What kind of sealant did you use?

Looks good! A new windshield should improve your outlook also. :thumbs:

Dan

Thanks Dan, I am sure it will. Night driving was not good (especially in the rain). The old windshield had been polished by someone (prior to me owning the car) and it ruined the optical clarity of it. At night light would reflect through the glass in sparkles and rain made it worse (plus we had the added fun of water leaks).
Roy :thumbs:

I think you did a great job, looks good. :thumbs:

I used 3M part no. 08509 Bedding & Glazing Compound to seal the gasket to the steel channel (refered to as a gun grade body sealer in the Chassis Service Manual) and 3M part no. 08633 Windo-Weld Resealant (refered to as a windshield cement in the Chassis Service Manual). The windo-weld resealant dries to a flexible rubbery seal and the bedding and glazing compound is a non-hardening, water resistant, medium bodied product that can be used for sealing body seams and between the windshield rubber gasket and the car body.

Both of these products work very well, but for a novice like myself I managed to make a pretty good mess. Good thing they clean up fairly easily using 3M General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner (part no. 08987).
Roy :thumbs:

The finished job.
http://www.powerpcs.com/windshield/win10.jpg

67-427ci,

I've read this thread with interest. I started my tear apart of the dash mainly to replace the dash skins on the dash pads. When I pretty much emptied the cabin, it made it easy for me to check the under dash cowl area for any rust issues. Frankly, I'm kinda surprised. She seems in preety good shape. There is surface rust where the cowl metal sandwiches to the under dash metal.

Here's a snap of the empty cabin. I apologize if this pic is a monster in size. Need to be able to resize these. Just haven't quite figured this out.

http://i1.tinypic.com/o878s6.jpg

One thing you mentioned as well as Cmacsvette are these "square holes" under the dash.

Where exactly are these square holes you speak of?

Appreciate your response on this.

Thanks!

Regards,

Jim

Jim:
Remove the inside lower reveal molding (where the base of the windshield meets the dash) and you will see the mounting bolts for the dash to the bird cage. Remove these bolts and you should be able to pry the dash back an inch or so. With that clearance you can see the square holes.

By the way, if you need an image resizer, click on this link. It is a free PowerToy from Microsoft. Once installed all you need to do is right-click on your image file and you will see different resize options. Microsoft Image Resizer PowerToy
Roy :thumbs: