Anyone ..step by step for installing rear window on coupe
 

Hi ,

Im getting ready to install rear window back in my 1975 coupe
bought new factory seal and new facoty black trim , i have the seal on the rear window .. dont care about defrost wires
and have it sitting in rear window opening .. need a litlte guidance ont he following ..

1/ whats the best way to get the new black trim into the seal ?

2 once the trim is in .. i just use the rope method to pull in the seal around the inside edge ?

thanks in adance .. hopefully someone can give me a few pointers here .. hope to install tonight or tommorrow

- Joe -

hi,

i have done a few windscreens, but that rear screen is supposed to be a real b*tch.

personally i would pay a pro - it isnt expensive. sayin that a pro did mine and now the defrost dont work..............!!

Oh, c'mon, it's not that hard, especially if you aren't going to bother hooking up the defroster. Just make sure that the top edge is well seated _under_ the cabin vent strip when you start and be aware that the gasket, when it's done, looks a little screwy: the top half, along the sides, sits inside the window cutout and the bottom half nests against the _outside_ (the roof itself) of the cutout. Coat the sealing surface of the gasket (and the line) liberally with dishwashing fluid. Make sure you use a line that's strong enough to withstand a goodly pull. Plain old string won't do it. And use enough line that it overlaps itself and there's plenty to spare. Outside guy pushes hard on the window--but not hard enoguh to break it--inside guy, actually my wife, in my case, pulls the line. In some areas the line might not succeed in fully nesting the gasket, but you can finalize the seating with a variety of tools from a plain old dull dining knife on up, depending on what's in your toolbox--hooks, pries, icepicks, putty knives...

Stephan

Basically the rear window is no more difficult (excepting the defroster wires) than the front window. You use the exact same heavy cord technique. You need a helper (or really, really long arms). I've done a couple in my garage and they are no big deal. The most difficult thing to my memory is getting the trim piece in the gasket before you install the window.... now that can be a bugger for sure. Good luck.
:rolleyes:

hows the best way to get the trim into the seal ? .. have $200 new trim !..dont wnat to screw it up , and a factory seal .. so it should go together fine .. anyone know how to seat trim into seal PLEASE

Thanks to all who posted .. - Joe -

What has worked for me in the past, but is a little hard to explain in words is the following....
I squeeze the trim into the seal between the palms of my hands (the meat of the palm below the thumbs). I place one beneath the seal and the other on top pushing the trim into the seal. It's difficult and takes some time for sure, but I've never bent the trim doing it this way. Inserting the trim to me is by far the most difficult part of the job when installing either the front or rear windows.
Perhaps others have better ways???

The most important thing about seating the trim into the gasket is that before seating it, the trim be exactly the shape it will be when it is seated. If it's bent in any way, anywhere, even microscopically, it'll either immediiately or eventually pull out of the rubber. So you take the piece of rear glass and lay the trim on it, about at the outboard edge of the glass (which is where it's going to end up when it's in the gasket). If it doesn't exactly conform to the glass, you need to carefully, gently bend it into shape. It's virtually impossible to get the trim _out_ of the gasket without slightly malforming it, and I don't know how they store and ship new pieces, but I would imagine there's ample opportunity for deformity there as well.

When you have the trim strip perfectly shaped, put the gasket onto the glass all the way around, and start at one end or the other to put the trim strip in place. This involves pushing it into the slit with vigorous thumb pressure while simultaneously prying the slit in the gasket open (I use a small cheese knife/spreader agains the trim strip, using the strip for leverage), and advancing inch by inch. One thing that's very helpful is half a dozen Pony spring clamps, to hold down the already seated length of the trim strip. You can advance the Pony clamps one past the other as you go along, so ideally it could be done with two of them, but the more the merrier.

If the trim strip pops out of the gasket anywhere while you're doing this, it simply means that you thought you had it perfectly shaped to the glass, but you're wrong...

Stephan

If you ever sell the vehicle it might be nice to have the defroster working, it's a PITA to live in an environment that causes the rear window to fog and to not have it work. Rewiring the defroster is not a problem if you still have the original to use as a pattern. Once you get the holes drilled into the seal trace all of the wires around. I have a 2 stage defroster in my car that has 4 wires running around and into the harness. After the wires are set in the seal, run the seal around the glass and insert the exterior trim into it's respective slot. Everything should hold together as an entire sub-assembly. Now follow Steve and Doug with the heavy cord ...

OK .. I completed install of rear window last night .. no defrost wires, as the window had a couple of the electrical connection tabs broken off, and i didnt feel like messing with it .. actually the window went in fairly easy .. and its my first time doing a window install , i usually have a glass company do it.But will do them my self from now on .. thanks to you guys that helped point me in the right dirrection !

Well here is what worked for me ..

1/ Put rubber seal on rear window .. dry no soap

2/ Put a tiny bit of petrolum jelly on window trim and on rubber seal where the slot for the window trim is.

3/ Push on trim and move rubber seal back and forth so that the trim clicks into seal .. the corners are a little harder but not that bad

4/ Once you have one side in put the small trim clips on the side you just put in so that when you do the other side , you can slide the clips over the space between left and right trim pieces

5/ Now you have a rear window with the seal and trim on it.

6/ Now get a lenght of nylon rope .. like clothes line rope .. i forget what size i used i think 3/16", cut a piece the length that will go around perimeter of window and a extra 3 ft. Take that peice of rope and put it in a bowl of real soapy water .. to soak the rope .

7/ Push the rope in the seal grove that needs to fit to car and have the ends of the rope be at the middle of the top of the window.

8/ With a sponge soaked with real soapy water .. soak both the window seal , and put a good amount all over the inside of the window frame on car .. so that everything is nice and soapy

9/ With a helper .. preferably a DD stacked girlfriend ;) put rear window in car and fit window into window frame as best you can making sure you got it pretty much centered top to bottom and left to right ...and with a bit of firm pressure on the window frame right where your ropes are located inside of car have your assistant start pulling rope out of seal .. while you are pressing on window fram at the same location, and it will roll the seal out sealing the window.

10/ Now that you have the seal seated properly inside the car, go back out side the car and check that the outside edge of the seal is unwrapped and not rolled under .. if there are parts that are just get a small screw driver or hook and flip the edge of the seal out .. hard to describe .. but just make sure that the seal edge is uniform on al sides of the seal.

11/ I had some of the window trim not seated evenly .. what i did was grabbed a hammer and a roll of duct tape and tapped the trim down using the roll of duct tape as a buffer and it works great on the corners if you lay down the duct tape roll in the corner of the window , you can pop the corners right in .. nice and even

So total time start to finish about 1.5 =- 2hrs

Hope that helps some one in the future doing a rear window install

Take care

- Joe -

Is it possible to get the trim in place after the window is installed?
Mine wasn't put in properly when the window was replaced. The trim is out of the rubber across about 3/4's of the top edge. The rest is seated properly.

I am going to pay a pro to do mine in the next week or so. I would suggest you buy Wayne's book 101 Projects for your P 911. He details things like this and other useful projects and you will be supporting our generous host.

Dave:
From what I know, it is impossible to reinstall or adjust the trim once the window is in place. Unfortunately I think it will need to come out to fix the trim. After installing my rear window and experiencing how "relatively" easy it was, I would always do it myself.

I just did my windshield install last weekend (with my 60 yr. old mom!!!) and POVI/Joe's install is a great breakdown of the procedure. Nicely done Joe.

I used silicone spray to get the trim installed in my windshield gasket. Next time I do something like this, i'll choose something else. Probably soapy water.

The silicone spray has too much staying power and doesn't go away any time soon. I would think petroleum jelly will be the same deal? Point being, the trim comes out of the gasket quite easily when sprayed with silicone. Therefore, it becomes that much more important for the trim to be very straight. My trim is a little pesky and doesn't stay all the way in the slit at the point where the two ends come together (where you install the sliding clip to close up the ends) at the top of the windshield.

A very good cord to use is the plain old cloth braided nylon rope. The smooth, silky feeling white stuff that you'd use for a clothesline. 3/16" is a great size. Not too small and plenty strong enough for hard pulling. And hard pulling should not be necessary since you lube up the rope, gasket, and channel with soapy water. I'd recommend using a diluted liquid soap mixture. No need to have all that soap left over in the channel and seal.

This job is not that hard, so long as you do it right and don't try to cut corners. In that vain, I would certainly not try to install the trim with the glass installed. The trim bends very easily and the gasket is being pinched with the glass in the gasket and installed into the channel. I tried to diddle with the trim with the glass in the car last year and I only made my wind noise problem worse!

Did any of you fellas use sealant for your rear windows? I have yet to seal my windshield because i'm waiting to get the car on the ground and settle the glass in place by driving it. I am definitely going to seal the windshield but was curious about the rear window. Sealant seems like a must-do to me.........

I'd recommend this job to most anybody. It's actually quite easy if you know the tricks (soapy water and rope). Plus, you'll know the job was done right. Mine was done DEAD WRONG by the last guy and it showed. Damaged paint, poor seal (reused the old gasket) which allowed water to leak into the car, tiny spots of rust and no sealant was used on the glass or the gasket-to-body area.

No offense to the pros or anyone who knows one, but if you let a pro do it you're not going to be able to assess any other issues that might arise (paint damage, rust, whatever......). Unless the installer is considerate enough to let you know the problem, he'll probably put it all back together and you'll never know there's something wrong under there.

Don't forget to put some urathane or some sort of sealant on both sides of the rubber, or she'll leak

Won't petroleum jelly rot the rubber?
Charlie White

Step 1: Call a professional.

No reall, do it. I work on a ton of stuff on all my cars (two books as proof). This is one job that I will *never* try again. I swear, those windshields are strong to survive my frustrated pounding on them for about 5 hours. Screaming, cursing, jumping up and down until about 3:30AM. Then I gave up.

Stuff like this makes the headliner project tougher than an engine rebuild...

-Wayne

Yes,
I did this by first taking a putty knife with some dishsoap and lubricated the channel for the trim. Then I used the putty knife to insert a small gauge wire into the channel. Then I pushed down on the trim as I pulled out the wire. Very similar to doing the window.

By the way, you pull the wire out away from the window because the outer edge of the seal is the side that mates with the trim flange.

See photo:http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads/WIRE.JPG

This will work for reinserting a straight section. It doesn't particulaly work well on corners though.

After reading all these posts, and having attempted to replace a rear window on my 911, I think manufactures sometimes design things delibertly to be a PITA so you'll appreciate all the guys with all the special tools.

Hi! Joe
The explanation that POVI gave you is excellent. I did mine that way and it worked well, with a litle bit of!@#%&%#.
Daniel

Bobby,
I like the idea. I was considering a really, really long piece of rod stock to hold open the gap in the rubber seal, slipping it out as the tab on the trim piece went in.
What keeps the wire from simply pulling out of the channel? How do you keep the free end of the wire captured?