Posted by Ken on Wednesday, April 04, 2001 at 8:48PM :
In Reply to: New glass in windshield.... posted by Dwight in N. Tx. on Wednesday, April 04, 2001 at 11:40AM :
Dwight,
I just put my windshield into its frame about 2 months ago. I was going to buy a "U" shaped gasket that Adirondack Dodge or Roberts sells to put on the glass before you put it in the frame.
However after looking at gaskets first hand at the Tobyhanna Flea Market I decided that it looked like the gasket plus the glass would not be a perfectly tight fit in my frame. This could be because my frame was badly rusted.
Anyway I changed my mind and instead got a tube of GE silicon RTV, available from the local auto parts store. I put newspapers on my dining room table and had my wife hold the bottom part of the frame upright on the table.
We laid a heavy bead of RTV in the lower half of the frame. Then we stood both halves of the glass upright in the bottom half of the frame. Next we put RTV in the upper half of the frame and slid it down over the glass.
We had no problems sliding it together and putting the screws in to hold both halves together.
One thing I would do differently though is to go light on the RTV bead. I had enough RTV most places that I had quite a bit extra to remove. I used my finger dipped in a cup of water to smooth it. If I did it over again I would put less in because you can always add some later but I ended up smearing some on the glass and had to take it off later with a razor blade scraper once it dried.
Once the RTV cured (24 hours) the glass was perfectly sealed to the frame. I was really happy with the way it turned out and was glad I did not use the purchased gasket. Of course as someone else mentioned you would not do this to an original restoration or show truck. (My truck is going to be driven, and will never be shown, unless you see me spinning doughnuts or mud bogging in the parking lot of a show. Or come to the Bloomsburg truck show and watch me win the tug of war truck competition)
One other thing, my center strip was rusted away. I took (2) pieces of 16 Ga sheet cut into 1 " wide strips and bent them in the center length wise to match the angle between the 2 pieces of glass. I drilled both pieces in (3) places and plug welded #10 screws with the head cut off to the outside strip with the threads facing the inside of the cab. The outside strip was then welded onto the bottom half of the windshield frame.
Before we put the glass in we RTV'd a piece of scrap rubber pond liner material to both inside and outside strips. Then once the glass was in place we put the inside strip into place and put nuts on the studs to hold it in place.
Hope this helps.
By the way, has anyone out there ever thought about salvaging windshield frames by taking the tops of (2) rusted frames and making one good frame out of it?? Seems to be this should be able to be done.
Ken
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