Another Broken Windshield Thread

[edwardb]

I know this has been talked about a lot. But as I posted in my #8674 build thread, I joined the broken windshield club last week. Thought I would share my experience and observations FWIW in a new thread versus one of the older ones. My #8674 Roadster is in its third driving season with just under 5,000 miles. No signs of any windshield issues until climbing in last week and found the telltale diagonal cracks on the driver side. Appeared overnight will sitting in a cool garage. Coincidentally, two other local club members discovered broken windshields during the past week. Another Factory Five and an ERA. Good grief. This is what I discovered:



My first inclination was to replace with the Fast Freddie’s Lexan piece. His website said temporarily out of stock, so sent a message asking about availability. Received a response (1) No ETA when they would be in stock, and (2) Likely will no longer be offering them. At the now $600 listed price, kind of expensive anyway. Looked through some previous threads, and found where many are using coated Lexan from plastics suppliers. That's an option, but specifically found reference to a company Optic Armor that sells various Lexan sizes and thicknesses for this purpose. Their 24 x 72 x 3/16 flat is $250, so not the cheapest option. But purchased through Summit Racing has only $9.99 shipping. Would have gone that way, except promised delivery was about two weeks, and I wanted this fixed before London. So, checked with Factory Five, and they had replacement glass in stock for immediate shipment. So that’s what I did, and it’s now installed and fixed. If it breaks again, I’ll probably go the Optic Armor Lexan direction.

So a couple of additional words about the fix and observations. Lots has been posted about making sure the side arms aren’t putting pressure on the windshield, using shims, etc. Agree that’s important, and was curious how I did when installing mine. So to check this, plus maybe make the swap easier, I tried removing the windshield by just taking the four screws out of the side arms on each side and lifting the windshield frame out. Wasn’t sure what would happen when taking the screws out, so taped the arms down first, plus added some tape along the front edge of the gasket to avoid scratching the body if it moved unexpectedly and also to make sure I got it back exactly where it was. Turned out to be a complete non-event. With the screws out on each side, the arms barely moved and the windshield lifted right out. Clearly, the arms were putting no pressure on the windshield.

The replacement windshield glass received from Factory Five was the same DOT code as the windshield originally received with the complete kit. Made in Taiwan. The glass appeared to be decent quality. The edges were relatively smooth. Some have reported rough edges and thought this contributed to the problem. Don’t know, but mine were OK. The glass came with new gasket material and a new seal for the bottom edge. Removing the old glass and installing the new glass with the new seal was relatively easy. I used some WD-40 on the frame and it slipped over the gasket material without a lot of drama. Also gave me a chance to see if the screws I very carefully placed for the visor brackets were affecting anything, since I didn't remove the brackets themselves. The screws were just barely through and not a mark on the seal. Nothing there that would contribute to the windshield breaking. With a little help from my trusty shop helper (my wife) set the windshield frame back in place and got all the side screws back in. Took a little jiggling to get the right angles, but all good. Definitely easier than reaching into the bowels of the chassis and removing the whole assembly with the arms attached. Plus didn’t have to mess with the angle and location again. Total time from receiving the FedEx box to all fixed was about three hours.

So what’s happening and why are these breaking? Can’t say for sure with my sample size of one. But feel like in this case it wasn’t because of stress from the side arms. What I did notice though with the windshield off is on both sides, right inside the side arms, the corner of the windshield was contacting the body. Enough that it was digging into the fiberglass body a little. Obviously not seen, so not an appearance concern. But that tells me maybe the windshield is getting some additional vibration and stress right on that corner and over time could cause them to fail. The windshield needs to be pushed down all the way to get the front gasket to compress enough, especially to fill the valley between the fenders and the center. Don’t know if there’s a solution. Curious what others might think. Meanwhile, back to driving and see how it goes.