Ham's '48 - Another Adventure

Try as we might to keep it from happening – old trucks and Jeeps leak. Now, a drip or dribble of oil on the driveway or garage floor is one thing. You can handle that with a piece of cardboard or a pan of cat litter under the drip. But windshield leaks are another matter entirely, especially if it happens to leak on top of your wife’s foot when you get caught in a summer downpour!

The conversation went something like this:

“After all of the work you’ve had done on this truck, why does it still leak?…”. Being the wise man I have become I answered; “Yes dear, I’ll take care of that”.

So, I called the guy who did the restoration and asked about the guy who had set the windshield originally. Hmmm, no help there – he’s in jail for the next 3 to 5 years. There was a little misunderstanding over some auto titles.

So, the next stop was at one of the specialty glass shops. They looked at the truck, marveled at it and said “Nope” to the job. “That’s a rope set windshield and we don’t do those any more. The old guy could do those retired a couple of years ago”.

The next place was about the same story, with the additional comment “And, if we scratch something on a classic (I’d never heard a ’48 Jeep truck called a classic) you guys get all upset and it’s not worth the trouble”. Remember this comment.

The fourth time was the charm. The young man who would actually do the job looked it over and commented that it would be a hard job, but he would take it on. His comment was “It takes a guy on the inside, a guy on the outside and the lady from the office to tell us which way to go next for a rope set”. I ordered a new gasket and we got started.

The old gasket had been glued in place and came out in little pieces. Fitting the glass was more of a job than expected but after cutting seven pieces of glass and breaking three, it fit to his satisfaction. Then, I got a call I wasn’t expecting.

“Mr. B – when I pulled the tape off the driver’s side pillar, the paint came with it”.

AAAARGGHHHH!

We had found a place where the paint and primer didn’t stick well. The glass guy was scared to death. He was sure I was going to kill him and eat him. After all, he had messed up a “classic”. I just told him “Stuff happens, let’s get the job finished”. He did, we water tested it and we couldn’t make it leak. It did take a couple of tries to find the little weeps but until we get another frog drowning rain we can’t find any leaks.

As the pictures show, we have a little margin to work with before we have to work under the gasket, hopefully we have sound paint to work against. There is a little break line there so any slight difference in color won't stick out as badly as it would on a continuous flat surface. We’ve got paint to match the color and we’ll get it in the paint booth fairly soon.

But – it won’t leak on my wife’s foot anymore and that’s what matters!

Looks like they did a good job with the glass. You are right, stuff happens, but it couldn't happen in a better place. It will blend in nicely. We have the windshield out of the wagon. The dash has some soft spots, and the lower lip that the seal rides on, needs to be replaced/fabricated. Ours is the later one piece windshield, and until I pulled it out, thought that it was a flat piece of glass... Nope, it has a very slight crown to it, so now I know exactly why the replacement would cost so much. I'll polish the original, and put it back in. It has some fog around the edges, but it will be alright.