the flight of kiyreagle

[pradtf]

we have cleaned up the gunk for the car and are almost ready to put the windshield on. the tsm tells you about support spacers (there are 2 of them at the bottom holding up the windshield) and then there are 6-8 standoff spacers which look like they go under the windshield.

are these necessary and what do they actually do?
(i can post a diagram if people don't know what i'm talking about) 

[IowaEagle]

Yes.  Most body shops should have some.

[mojobean]

they'll keep your window glass from resting butt-up against the metal ledge of the frame. then when you put your sealer in.. it kinda envelopes them in there and it all stays put. definately need them.

[pradtf]

they'll keep your window glass from resting butt-up against the metal ledge of the frame. then when you put your sealer in.. it kinda envelopes them in there and it all stays put. definately need them.

ok thx for this - we were going to ignore them because they weren't there in the first place. everything is closed to day so we will have to make them from wood. since the tsm says we should have a 3/8" min urethane thickness, i presume the standoff spacers should be less in thickness than that. i also presume that we should use some urethane to stick them to the pinchweld flange. then the urethane on the glass itself will take care of the rest.

[pradtf]

we put it on around 11pm last night, but winged several things.

for instance, we couldn't quite figure out what size the standoff spacers were supposed to be so they would keep the glass from hitting the metal, so we just put down extra urethane.

we also couldn't figure out what cutting the 'V' on the urethane tube meant initially so we just cut an oval. later my son, realized what the 'V' is all about. the way to do it would seem to be to cut the tube at 90 degrees to get a circle. then you cut out a 'V' as indicated on part of the tube just touching the circle. now when you squeeze the trigger, the bead comes out in a triangle-like shape. the reason for this shape seems to have to do with assisting the glass to settle down nicely. floor and wall tile trowels often have triangular or square 'teeth' which create little waves on the adhesive. the crests of these waves are structurally weak so when you push the tile down, they collapse forming a flat surface which is much harder to compress. similarly, the point of the 'V' is structurally weak, so as you push the glass down, it collapses to a point where there is a greater amount of urethane. to push down on this urethane would require a great deal of force - in fact, you'd have to squish it out beyond the edge of the glass. as such, it lets the glass settle on a fairly firm platform to cure.

we also put the urethane on the car not the glass as the tsm instructed because we saw a lot of people doing just that and because we didn't have suction cups, it was going to be difficult to grab the glass and install it without getting the stuff on your hands. it was also easier to get extra urethane into areas we thought might require it. needless to say we ended up putting too much urethane on, but then pushed some of it into place with a putty knife from the edge. the job looks quite clean and neat now.

we'll be letting it cure for more than 24 hrs before driving - it's not cold here, but hardly warm either.

we didn't use all the urethane in the tube, so we taped up the opening, but i rather doubt we'll be able to stop it from curing, unless there is an intelligent way to store urethane in a mostly empty tube?

in friendship,
prad

[IowaEagle]

It appears you had a successful reinstall!

[68AMXGOPAC]

Looks like you have it done and together.Glass placement can be a pain, especially when dealing with sticky goopy urathane.I know of no way to keep that stuff or most any caulk from curing over a long period of time.I would think it should be good for a few weeks at least in case you have to do some touch up. I think the spaers help in also making sure the urathane isn't too thick,and then have an issue with the trim snapping down on the clips?? It's been awhile since I did a windshield replacement, and actually cracked the one I tried to save from my parts rig.( I was too impatient and broke a perfectly good spare one)

[pradtf]

I think the spaers help in also making sure the urathane isn't too thick,and then have an issue with the trim snapping down on the clips??

ya i could see them doing that. in fact, the windshield is actually a bit lower for the trim - the spacers could possibly have provided a better height. in any case, i don't think the trims will be too difficult to deal with - the previous installer had put some parts of them on with the same goopy stuff he used on the windshield itself. we'll figure something out.

thx btw, for all your suggestions and assistance on this!

[68AMXGOPAC]

Your welcome, and you have been egged, for all your hard work and fighting that steep learning curve.

[pradtf]

thx 68amxgopac!

tonight came a real tribulation. kiyreagle had been sitting for a week while we got through the windshield installation in my mother-in-law's garage. we were going to drive home from there at 10pm, but we barely rounded the first block and the engine quit. kyron pushed kiyreagle off to the side of the road and we kept trying to start, but no go - the engine just wouldn't turn over.

we thought may be somehow we'd run out of gas. so we took my mother-in-law's car and went to a gas station where the attendant let us use one of their 5L containers. we put the gas into kiyreagle and started up fine wanting to get back to the gas station to do a proper fill-up. however, about a kilometer later at a 3-way intersection the engine died again and wouldn't start. kyron pushed kiyreagle through a right turn and off the road again, but try as we might nothing was happening.

then as so happens sometimes, i thought of an illogical connection. we had put a new pcv filter when we drove to my mother-in-law's and the engine had aced similarly though not as problematically. so i took the filter out in an act of desperation. sure enough the engine started right away - go figure!

i have a feeling that the wet weather has a lot to do with the shutting off and not starting problems. our van has similar (though not as pronounced) issues in wet weather. is it possible the carb gets too much moisture in there? i vaguely recall a friend of mine in ontario several decades ago telling me how well his old car started in cold weather when he put some ethyl alcohol (i think it was), down the carb ... may be to dry things out?

we drove back to the gas station, returned the container and got 30L of gas. then we drove back to pick up ranjana from her mother's and drove home the 5km without any trouble ... though

1. the wipers were behaving in a fascinating fashion, sweeping at random times, but always before the visibility became in tolerable.
2. 3rd gear sounded somewhat rough and 4th gear sounded rougher. 1st and 2nd were just fine though. we'll have to look into this.

nevertheless, one way or another, kiyreagle got us home ... and i have this feeling, always will!

[IowaEagle]

Do you have intermittent wipers?  Turn the switch to left for intermittent (no clicks), to the right for regular two speed wipers (two clicks).   What does "rough" sound like?  A growl, a whine, some other noise; intermittently or constantly?

[pradtf]

What does "rough" sound like?  A growl, a whine, some other noise; intermittently or constantly?

it was a growl and constantly on 4th and to a lesser extent on 3rd (though it used to be worse in the past).

[pradtf]

after some study and advice seeking the rear brakes have been installed. the link above shows the problem we had regarding the brake shoes being a bit different from the original, but it doesn't look like it is a problem.

we haven't had a chance to try the brakes yet because as we worked on them we found other problems up the line. the nut attaching the brake lines to the cylinders were so badly rusted that we couldn't get the off even with a vice-grip, so we had to cut the line and actually hammer out one of the cylinders (the other came out quietly). nor could we get the nuts of the 't', we ordered a new rear brake hose, but then couldn't get the old brake hose out either again because the nuts had deteriorated too badly. in our attempt to separate the rear brake hose from the line coming from the front of the car, we broke the rear brake line. so we're going to install a new one tomorrow up to the connector under the engine. it looks like the line from the bottom of the engine compartment to the master cylinder is quite good. our guess is that whoever had the car before kirsten, did work on various parts of the engine area, but never got around to under the car where several things are badly frozen including the parking brake cable which is something that we're going to need to look at soon.

[pradtf]

in our effort to work on the brakes, we had to raise the rear of the car only to discover that the tank was leaking. gas tanks are something we have always wanted to stay very, very far away from because of all the stories we've heard about them. however, we figured we might as well get to know kiyreagle's.

after getting some forum advise, we undertook the first step which was to remove the tank (after siphoning out the gas) and see how badly it is rusted. this was not an easy job because the bolts and nuts that keep the straps up were practically immovable. in fact, the long vertical bolt kept twisting so there was no way we wanted to risk breaking it especially since reading in a thread they are not easy to come by.

here's the solution we utilized using a vice-grip braced against the underside of the car and a wrench:


it took quite a while but the nuts came off as the straps and down came the tank. we recovered the sender unit (fuel inflow, float etc) after some effort against the heavy rust and washed the tank out with water. the bolts really aren't in good shape and the nuts are going to take quite an effort to put back on, but we are thinking we may be able to die the threads into better shape and may be put a new nut on.

imho, it seem a rather flimsy arrangement to have the straps attached to this bolt that is just hanging in midair almost, but i guess when you tighten things up it must make a pretty stable configuration. we've also ordered new straps, so we'll see how it all goes together in the next couple of days.

[IowaEagle]

Did you find the leak(s) Prad?