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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:33 pm
by Amskeptic
The BobD no longer has its original windshield, and only the fact that the new one fits well enough allows me to say "good riddance" to that annoying wiper arm scratch arcing in my field of view since I have known this car.
I was originally doing a simple glue-speaker-wire-around-the-perimeter-of-the-glass to stop a slowly-evolving-towards-insistent leak. I did locate a replacement PPG windshield before undertaking this operation, just in case . . . No more wheel cylinder rebuilds with no brake fluid moments for me!

The windshield r & r write-up is in the Body Hardware forum.
a) remove blahblahblah
b) clean the blahblahblah:
Image

c) waxed primed blahblah:
Image

d) blah are fun too.
e) I scrubbed blahblah.
Image

f) We blahblahblah.
g) Now break the damn windshield, here's how: make sure that you do NOT see that the seal did not properly lay down on the bottom pinchweld. Even though the inside looked FINE, the grooved part of the seal had actually climbed the pinchweld. I saw a bump along the bottom run of the seal on the outside that I tried to massage back out towards the front of the car. Stupidly, I pushed with a closed fist against the glass at the bottom center and crack! last OEM windshield on Earth bye-bye. Please understand that pushing the inside concave is far more dangerous than pushing the outside convex of the glass.
h) etc
i) etc
Image

So I skip through the procedure here, because here I am more interested in giving you the context of the day. I had promised my brother and sister-in-law a nice dinner, I had a windshield out of the car, and I had to go to Miami with no idea of just where in the morning. When I broke the last original windshield on Earth, I was suddenly praying that Executive Auto Glass really really did actually have the "tinted but no sunshade band" windshield that the guy on the phone lazily assured me that he had.

I hopped into the Lexus to tear off to Norcross GA to pick up this windshield . . . but wait! My brother's neighbor is flagging me down. He needs a jump start to get to a job interview. So I pulled into his driveway and got his Jetta started and tore off to Norcross. My brother called to say that he was roped into some golf club's computer crash. Picked up the windshield and was crawling in construction zone traffic when the car began to lurch. Shut off the A/C and Bach's Brandenburg Concerti to listen. Car died. Car started, and lurched. It was just like running out of gas . . . but I had over 1/3 tank. (?)

(Yondermtn remembers the day my brother called us to tell me that the car was dying on its maiden trip to Atlanta from the New Jersey used car lot. It has never ever hiccoughed for me in the two years I have owned it, I always sort of thought that maybe my brother was exaggerating for filial guilt reasons, to pad his "You Owe Me" ledger, uh no.)

Down the street, I could just make out a Chevron station, but the long line of idling cars made it an epic distance for my suffering car. Every time I hit the gas, it would die. If I feathered it excruciatingly tenderly, it would give me about 2 seconds of go, then die. Finally pulled on the shoulder so that if it died for good, at least I would not be blocking this long line of hot delayed motorists. That's when the car decided to take off. I said, "you go!" That pissed off people. Then it died so they could all pass me and shoot hateful looks. I bailed into a strip mall and lurched through the parking lot, across the cross street, and into the other strip mall. 5 mph was my top velocity now. Came out into another cross street, and now there was no option but to get in line on the main crawl. I asked the Lexus, can you do this? It ran just calmly enough to commit me to the line once more . . . then coughed and died. No shoulder, no center lane, and a bunch of annoyed people behind me, plus we are drawing abreast of the paving crew, and I am being waved by a construction worker who looks like he is trying to fan me forward with his hand. I was obviously too stupid to understand that I was supposed to drive my car down the street. The Lexus is getting more recalcitrant. After a couple of horrible pinging lunges, I pull into the Chevron where my phone starts chirping its low battery warning. The charger and my tools are in the BobD. I call my brother who waxes loquacious about his New Jersey to Atlanta run, but he does offer to be tool courier back-up ride home. "Where are you?" "Hang on, I can't read the road signs from here . . . . . . uh, Abbotts Bridge and Peachtree." "OK, I know where that is."

Fill the gas tank. Switch the hot fuel pump relay with the cool horn relay, they subsitute perfectly. Start the car and it seems to be running OK. Pull out onto the cross street that I am supposed to take back home. Uh-oh, here comes the paving crew! They are going to block traffic in both directions! As I sit at the head of the line of this cross street the engine dips and stutters and recovers. I hit the gas and pull out across the main drag I had just helped to jam up with traffic, drive across the fresh pavement between the asphalt laying machine and the steam roller, and spot in the rear view mirror what must have been a construction worker waving a cheery "See ya later! Drive safe!" but might have been "What the @*!#% are you doing you *@!%# New York @^#%$"! I apologized about a quarter of a mile away and thought "I can never show my face in this town again, that was unbelievably rude!"
The car was running pretty good now and I made it home. I was preparing the new windshield with a fresh layer of 22ga speaker wire to help the original seal to keep water out, when the neighbor whose car I started earlier came over. "I got the job!"
and "Hey, that was YOU at Abbotts Bridge and Peachtree."
Colin :colors:

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:57 pm
by Hippie
What a day. The guy getting the job kind of makes it worth it all. Good of you to help him out.
PS
I can break windshield all by myself. One I got now cracked by itself even.

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 6:52 am
by dtrumbo
What a day. FWIW, I have the last original windshield with its original seal in my '78 where it will stay until the end of days or until a rock destroys it, which ever comes first, there is no warranty, expressed or implied.

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 7:46 am
by Amskeptic
dtrumbo wrote:What a day. FWIW, I have the last original windshield with its original seal in my '78 where it will stay until the end of days or until a rock destroys it, which ever comes first, there is no warranty, expressed or implied.
Let me help you. I will find a minor "water leak" and threaten you with tales of sodden cardboard behind the door and kick panels warping to trashy looking degrees. We can remove the original seal and windshield, wash everything, glue speaker wire around the perimeter, get all excited that we will complete this job with nary a tool in our hands, then I will see a lump in the seal and push it out exactly at the center and it will crack.
Sound like a plan?
Colin
:withstupid:

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 8:40 am
by dtrumbo
I'm certain the plan would go exactly as planned which is why the windshield will stay as is and the bus will stay in the nice warm dry garage between trips outside in the cruel wet world.

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 8:49 am
by Sylvester
Ah ha, that was probably the windshield they had a year ago when I was going to take out Sam's and replace it but my welder did not work out. Now I have to find another. Ah well, and hey that was you blocking traffic the other day I heard on the radio about when they were discussing traffic to avoid, and watch the guy blocking traffic in the Lexus? Captain Herb did not say very nice things about you.

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:06 pm
by Amskeptic
Sylvester wrote:Ah ha, that was probably the windshield they had a year ago when I was going to take out Sam's and replace it but my welder did not work out. Now I have to find another. Ah well, and hey that was you blocking traffic the other day I heard on the radio about when they were discussing traffic to avoid, and watch the guy blocking traffic in the Lexus? Captain Herb did not say very nice things about you.
Don't lie, boy. Who's Captain Herb?
Laying Low In Miami

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:53 pm
by chitwnvw
Always an adventure.

Did you find aftermarket glass that actually has the correct curve?!?!? Can I stop stuffing roofing tar into my windshield seals?

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 8:59 am
by Sylvester
Amskeptic wrote:
Sylvester wrote:Ah ha, that was probably the windshield they had a year ago when I was going to take out Sam's and replace it but my welder did not work out. Now I have to find another. Ah well, and hey that was you blocking traffic the other day I heard on the radio about when they were discussing traffic to avoid, and watch the guy blocking traffic in the Lexus? Captain Herb did not say very nice things about you.
Don't lie, boy. Who's Captain Herb?
Laying Low In Miami
Captain Herb Emory is the traffic copter reporter for WSB in Atlanta. He reports the traffic from the air, and mentioned a jam in the area where you were when you got the windshield. So, you had you 15 minutes of fame last week here in Atlanta. I would ask for you photograph but I already have it. I need to set up fixing my windshield, it is embarrassing to drive with a broken one.

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:56 am
by Gypsie
Amskeptic wrote: Don't lie, boy. Who's Captain Herb?
Laying Low In Miami

He says pulling his collar up and his hat down, furtive glances side to side...

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:10 am
by Sylvester
Colin, what have you been fixing down in Florida? Bugs or Busses? Is it better than the desert down there?

Re: Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Florida

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 12:54 pm
by Amskeptic
Sylvester wrote:Colin, what have you been fixing down in Florida? Bugs or Busses? Is it better than the desert down there?
I visited with exoticdvm outside of Miami where we found some weird low compression in #3 due to what appeared to be hydraulic lifters not bleeding down correctly, we got it from below 60 to above 130 by backing off the preload. I will ask him for an update.

Visited ez2bemyself in Neptune Beach and checked out his fresh professional rebuilt engine with 110 miles on it. Needs to go back. Low oil pressure and what i swear is a rod knock. I think this might end up being a reprise of Papasmurf's engine issue (a reground crankshaft with standard bearings).

Good VW bus people who might discover anew that the only person who is going to do it right is . . . you!
Colin