When I bought the cruiser there was a crack in the windshield from the drivers side corner. Crack extended so that in my field of view it just barely intersected with the front left corner of the hood. At the first gas station that I stopped at in the US of A I wondered if it would spread so I licked my finger and drew a line across the end of the crack.
I’ve been watching that smudge for almost a year. The crack has grown by about 2 inches and I decided it was time to look into a windshield replacement.
My wife recently needed a windshield replaced and was recommended the folks at Eastside Auto Glass, in Bellevue. She had a fine experience, said the guy told her all sorts of interesting things and she came away happy with the replacement.
A month ago I got a nasty rock in the windshield of the Porsche, eastside managed to fill it (took two holes to suck the epoxy through). As I was paying for the Porsche repair I asked about the land cruiser. Even before he looked it up the owner started talking about land cruiser windshields. “Theres a blue tinted one, and one with a very slight tint at the top…” and “Dang, the land cruiser windshields are sometimes oversize. We end up needing to GRIND them. GRIND THEM!!”
The price was going to come in under $300. Was $140 for the glass and 2+ hours of labor. I tried to arrange an appointment but the next week he was short handed. I would call in the future to arrange the install…
My windshield is missing is missing its upper driver side corner trim, I had it on order and was going to wait until I had it before arranging the windshield install, but Eastside called after 2 weeks saying the windshield was in. Ok! I arranged to come by at 8am on a Saturday.
Owner called on Friday night to be sure I would be there at 8am on Saturday.
Rainy Saturday I arrive at 7:45 to wait. Sure enough, 8am a guy shows up and opens the garage. This guy was 60, had large shoulders and a handshake that was gentle but had a kind of passive strength like an old construction worker. Kinda looked like Lee Van Cleef in “the master”.
Bring the car in, the guy sets to work. Seal is cut free from the glass and the frame, then the glass is gently worked out.
The old glass, fractured fully during removal.
With glass removed there are 3 small areas of rust on the frame.
Rust on window frame.
More rust on windowframe.
I scrape at it with a screwdriver but guy brings an electric grinder and polishes the rust away.
Rust polished away from window frame. Small amount of perforation.
Next is a zinc rust preventative and primer, then a different black primer around the entire frame of the window.
This primer is needed, otherwise urethane won’t adhere to the paint and metal?
He says to spray the Fluidfilm onto the far side of the dash when I get home.
Finally the rubber seal around the new glass and puts a bead of urathane around the seal. This urathane is heat activated, kept in heaters and dries fully in less than 10 minutes.
The magic urethane.
Special urethane heater.
A helper is called over and the seal is centered. There are wide eyes for a few moments since the driver’s corner is “popping” but they recenter the glass and get the seal situated. They both spend maybe 10 minutes adjusting the seal to center the glass.
New windshield, seal is applied without urethane, then bead of urethane around the outside edge. Inside of seal isn’t glued until the glass is centered.
This is where skill counts since the urethane dries quickly and the glass doesn’t like to flex.
Next, guy puts a bead of urethane between the outside glass and the seal.
Next the chrome trim is inserted into the rubber seal.
Finally the rubber bead of urethane is cut away from the window and the window is cleaned and car is vacuumed.
Entire time I’m able to hear the wisdom of Cliff:
- The urethane that glues the windshield in place is needed for rollover protection. This was done by “the japs” first since they otherwise couldn’t pass the rollover tests.
- The previous owner had just used butyl rubber to hold the seal in place, that’s how you did it in the old days, but the old butyl rubber had asbestos in it to give it strength and body, the current stuff was no good.
- urethane sika they use dries fully in less than 10 minutes. Once they put a windshield in a car that crashed a few minutes later. Sika flew out 8 people to the scene of the accident to evaluate how their glue performed.
- Primer is really important for urethane.
- Urethane is so strong that it will pull paint from the car rather than release, which is why you see raw metal around the windshield in an accident.
- Often you see where the previous person had cut corners, for example the previous installer didn’t use the right glue, didn’t seal properly which explains the rust.
Anyway, Cliff started at 8am, worked straight through and finished only at 11:10am. 3 hours and 10 minutes to install a windshield. I got to watch the entire thing and there was not a moment wasted. Several of the jobs, especially centering the windshield were things I could not have done without special tools. Really was an honor and privilege to watch, this guy did a good job and its not often you get to see such skill at work.
During the time my car’s windshield was being replaced there were three newer vehicles in and had their windshields swapped. An Audi SUV, a Jetta and a Honda. The process was the same for each of those cars:
- park car
- cut away old windshield (using a special weird cutter tool)
- clean old glue off car’s windshield frame
- spooge urethane around the frame
- splonk windshield onto urethane
- wait 5+ minutes for urethane to cure
- drive car out.
The new windshield design makes a lot of sense though the windshields themselves cost a bit more than mine.
Anyway: wow, my new windshield is really clean!
CanadianBJ 