Sylvester wrote:Bleyseng wrote:I'd buy the metal replacement piece (I did on mine) and weld in it. That way you know it won't rust out on you again...unless you know its only going to last a year or two. I don't agree with you Colin esp as I can see the rust on the lip. For me it wasn't too hard to cut it out and weld in new fresh metal that fits perfectly the same as OEM.
Turned out nice and off you go.
hambone wrote:Patching is fine, a composite that will last longer than metal. It's hidden under the windshield seal anyway. I think you guys should have used POR15 however, that rust will come back.
That was my mistake.
Crap, lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking around here. It is easy to tell others what they should have done with an easy keyboard "that's what
I did", but indeed, we did not have a welder, we did not have a chinzy new piece of aluminum foil thin windshield channel which has to spot weld to the piece right behind it, and we did have this hired hack mechanic who has to find solutions that fit into agreed-upon time allotment ( in this case it ended up pretty much double the contracted time off the clock ).
I now own a bus, Geoff, that the prior owner paid damn good money to fix up, and I used to own a bus, Geoff, that never saw a professional in its life, and I have rust bubbles showing up on rockers and rust on the sliding door sheetmetal, and I have rust-through on the jack ports where the professional must have guessed no one would look, and this "professional welder" did things to the left rocker that to this day I cannot understand what the hell was he thinking.I had leaky windows with, you guessed it, rust eating up the sills, but my bus which never saw a professional in its life somehow hung in there without appreciable new rust.
So let me ask you who can afford to weld in a new windshield channel good to go at the drop of a hat, did you or your welder treat the inside surface of that metal? Did you rust proof the inside pinchweld piece where it will never again be accessible? How did you protect the spot welds themselves from future rust (in between the pieces of metal you are joining)? How did you protect the inside of the bead weld along the outer sheetmetal? Everybody looks at the outside smoothed to perfection and primed and painted, yeah yeah yeah, but the inside? I ask these questions because I see very nice body work all the time that does not go to the inner places that need protection. I do spend my allotted time or non-allotted time to work in rust catalyzing primer in between the pinchwelds of the entire channel. I do harass my customer to lock in the repair filler in the holes so that it may never loosen, and if you look at the Road Warrior photographs of the right rear tail lamp/battery box area, my repair held for eight years of serious driving and environmental assault.
I will say that this kind of work is labor and time intensive, and we had to delegate operations between us that might have not followed best practices as far as curing time, but to hear you, Geoff, I need to rethink the scope of how I might help people. It is getting too professional around here for me to get anything done in a weekend not to mention one day which is most of my appointments.
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles