Amazon: What lurks under your windscreen trim?

[stuart131]

Friends,

Seasons Greetings & very best wishes to you.

I am 2 months and 1400 miles into the ownership of my second and like-new 'immaculate' 122S 1969 Amazon 'RPM'. I have been through the heartache of losing one faithful friend to rust and vowed never ever to go through that again.
Last week, started to get a tiny drip-drip into the passenger foot-well during heavy rain and immediately took action today..... soooo glad I did. Took the internal screen trim off to have a look and was shocked to see that about a half cm square of the metal windscreen lip under the internal screen rubber in the corner had rotted away, letting water into the car. Also mortified to see the rust was starting to spread.. the driver side was also showing signs of surface rust. I have spent today drying these areas out with a hairdrier (I sh*t ye not) and then carefully filing away all the car-cancer I could see until bare metal was left. I then spent some considerable time squirting aerosol waxoil behind the metal lip and under the rubber along the entire screen length to prevent further rot. I then gave the vidal sassoon treatment to the seal outside (which must have looked utterly mad to the people walking their dogs past my house but hairy spheroids to 'em) and when thoroughly dry applied a thick coat of black sealant, carefully smoothing it out with a wet finger to obtain a smart finish, A bit of fettling with a sharp blade removed the excess and I now have a watertight seal ( I know because I ve had a hose on it at all angles) and hopefully its now rot proof too. You can be sure I ll still check it periodically to make sure though.
I urge you, yes YOU.......PLEASE...for the Love of all that is Holy, get that internal trim off and have a look under the inside of your windscreen rubber as even the most pristine of Amazons can spring a leak here , which if left will be very costly to repair if not fatal to your car. I ve had a lucky escape here.

Re the scuffing noise when braking (earlier thread), I thought Id cured it and indeed I have in a straight line, but when I go round a corner and brake..its still there, what the 'flipping heck' it is I have no idea. Anyone who can solve this mystery for me will find a bottle of Scotch arriving in the post shortly after they do.
Love my Amazon, had a lengthy trip up the M1 on Saturday to Coventry and back to Northampton and it was just great to swizz along with all the moderns no effort at all, Overdrive engaged and Howling Wolf on the CD player.......life just DOESNT get much better than that my friends.

Off now to try and remove black sealant from my hands and face.

Very best regards & hope any car troubles you have are small ones

Stu

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

That is why Swedish Ops is developing a modern fit windshield and back glass for the Amazon's/P1800's. It will eliminate the factory rubber seal all together, which will prevent the trapping of moisture and typical leaking.

We have done this process for American Models of cars, through my other company Classic Auto Glass Innovations, and it has done quite well. The glass comes in tint options, and the windshields come with a standard antenna built into them, just in case you ever wanted to eliminate the fender mast.

We will have some upcoming pics and information coming up, but you can review the discussion and templates in the build thread of Project Changling on this site.

[pez]

yep,leaky windscreen has been the death of many amazons,rots out the a post,bulkhead,sills and floor pans too.
i have first hand experiance of this.

forgot to take a before pic of all the rot,but it was a mess in one corner.

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Very nice clean up work there, and looks like you took the care to do it the right way...



I just thought this might be an opportunity to show something that we have coming out as a long term solution to a major problem. The OP has shown an issue that is common to basically all of these cars, and his voice of concern is an important one to the longevity of these cars as a whole. So, here is some basic information about a solution we have coming up, and it is a solution to the problem, so I felt it important to share it here. If you notice, that window opening is just like modern cars, and has the flange for a modern urethane to attach to.. With the modern urethanes, you get a waterproof seal, and it does not hold moisture.

Our windshields and rear glasses will glue in like a modern car, and will fit at a flush surface level, which will give a much cleaner look.. They have the ceramic black out border with the dot mattrix pattern, so you get a completely finished look.. The windshield does have a thin finish weatherstrip, that fills in the tolerance gap between the body and glass. It has to be there for windnoise, but is made not to hold moisture, or allow dirt and debris to be trapped..

The rear glass is made to not have to run any finish trim. You just float the glass at sheet metal level, and center it in the hole.. The tempered glass has a nice rounded edge finish, so it looks nice just on its own. It seals just fine, but the window channel can never hold moisture.. The kit does come with the same finish strip that is on the windshield, so you do have the option to run it..

If you look at this rendition below, you will see how the glass and weatherstrip will lay. It is the very same system we use on our other kits that are on the market. These are also DOT safety rated glass, with a Laminated front windshield and tempered rear glass








These are the P1800 Templates before being sent out, and you can see what I mean by the flush clean fit. There is about a 3/16 inch gap between the body and the glass with the finished product, which allows body flex tolerance and the finish strip to snap in..

[Tail]

I had a bit of leakage and did as you and found that the passenger side bottom corner was mostly rust from the bottom of the corner for at least 8" along the bottom. The top of the screen looked nasty but was only surface and cleaned up really well. I had to weld in four seperate pieces to get the corner profile right, taking a copy of the driver side and reversing it helped, all sorted now and i can relax a bit hopefully.

[Notlob]

Originally Posted by stuart131

applied a thick coat of black sealant, carefully smoothing it out with a wet finger to obtain a smart finish, A bit of fettling with a sharp blade removed the excess and I now have a watertight seal

Stu

Good work that man, would be interested to see some photies of the completed job to see how you finished off the sealant. It's on my to do list for this winter!.

Dave

[redcar]

i'm going to have to do this to my baby soon too. she went in this morning for a new floorpan on the drivers side. need to address the source of the leak asap...

[Tail]

Well i decided to go for a new screen as i really need it watertight so i can get the interior back in and Mobile windscreens, part of national windscreens had one in stock and fitted for a cheaper price than brookhouse had just the screen delivered.
But and here's the BUT, Old screen was fitted with a new rubber and sat in there for three weeks fine, new screen fitted and after two days popped clear of the screen surround at the bottom middle, rang the company and got the 'Ah but you did work on it so the screen surround is not true anymore' Rubbish says i as the old screen was refitted using the same rubber and was fine sat in there for three weeks. Oh says they lets have a look, so now they have decided it must be the screen thats incorrect and is misshapen but Pilkington say it will be 12 weeks while they make a new one so i told them to ring Brookhouse and see if Simon had one in. Still waiting to hear.......

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

So is availability a problem with the Windshield and Rear Glass? And what is the average cost of the glasses in your area?

The new glass that we are developing, actually float on the Urethane, so the seal bond fits perfectly every time..

[Tail]

I don't think availability is a problem, when i rang and spoke to Brookhouse they had some clear screens in but no green tinted screens so he was about to place an order for some tinted screens. I tried a local supplier who uses Pilkington and they list a screen but when they rang Pilkington they hadn't made a volvo screen for some time but there are other suppliers and the company i am dealing with now spoke to pilkington and they could make one but it would be 12 weeks. Cost wise for the front was around £70 from a local supplier and from Brookhouse as i said above the insurance for the delivery is the problem bringing the cost to around £200 delivered. Rear screens i have no idea about........