Windshield channel rust repair

Bit of background. About 7-8 years ago I had a windshield installed by a local shop. 2 days later it rained and windshield leaked. I took it back, they wouldn’t take responsibility, I then found and proved to them the leaks were from the windshield so they proceeded to slap some more urethane on the inside of the truck, along the windshield. The issues were mostly around the two “holes” where I think some sort of plastic tab goes. They did not use any such thing and just slathered on the urethane.
This, “fix” created pockets that would hold water/debris that eventually rusted the windshield channel enough to allow water to leak in. One day after a good rain I jumped in the truck and got dumped on. Here is what I found and how I corrected it. I was unable to find a (no welding needed, no through holes) repair anywhere, ran into some issues that took some time to research and find good answers for. Hopefully this can help someone and make the process easier.

Damage was just as bad on driver side with some along the side channel as well where water would gather due to an excess of urethane being used.

step 1. Removed windshield, removed all urethane. This took some time with a razor blade and wire wheel on an angle grinder. I was able to get it down to bare metal but no matter what fine wire wheel/brushes I used, I could not get the rust deep in the pitted areas out. Basic big box store “rust remover” wasn’t doing the trick even after countless applications and scrubbing.


Step 2: Remove ALL rust. Any rust left behind will slowly spread again, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, ANY left will spread. I was pointed in the direction of “por15” after searching some old hot rod restoration forms I found por15 was trash, the deeper I dug I began seeing information about this stuff. The real deal, burn your skin, make you go blind, maybe even melt your lungs stuff. This is what you want to ensure all rust has been taken care of. Apply and let sit for 24hours, then wire brush the by product created from the chemical reaction.


Step 3: With the rust now addressed it was time to somewhat smooth out the pitting. While the urethane will seal against uneven surfaces, I didn’t want to leave any opportunity for water to find a way. There were maybe 3 pits deep enough that they’d ate through the top layer of the pinch weld. I debated on using bondo, but the fact this is a surface a windshield will adhere to, I didn’t feel comfortable using something not known for its strength. After some research it looked like the trusty JB weld was my best option. Using the original 24 hr cure time JB weld, I used a putty knife and applied as needed in heavily pitted areas. Allowed 24 hours to cure and then hit it with an 80 grit sanding block to smooth it out.



Step 4: with all surfaces sanded, cleaned and wiped with acetone, it was time to get painting. I ordered 2 cans of my paint color, 1 can of primer and 1 can of clear coat from a website called automotive touch up.com . Wait time is a bit longer than I would have liked but the product itself was second to none, especially considering its rattle can.
I removed the tape and blended the edges by wet sanding with 2000 grit sand paper (1500 will work too). Then sprayed another two coats of color matching paint, followed by 4 clear coats.

After alls said and done, I’m happy with how it came out.


Things to note/that I would change.

I had the blue tape around the windshield for far too long, that coupled with all the subpar rust removal products I used, that I would then clean up for the night with acetone. The adhesive from the tape was difficult to get off and complicated the “blending” process, to remove any hard paint lines.

I would recommend putting the painters tape on during the wire wheel process, rust removal and job weld but remove it after the sanding, clean with acetone and reapply tape.

I would also recommend draping the entire front end of the truck a bit better. My paint over all on this truck is faded/flakey, so I wasn’t too concerned, while I don’t want it to look like a hack job, it would never look like a professional job unless I did the whole truck.

I may have missed some stuff as I’ve typed this out while caring for my new human that arrived in the middle of this surprise repair. I really hope this helps as I wasn’t able to find anything like this that was being done by a guy without paint guns, sand blasters etc.

 

Which local shop was this? Just curious as it seems we are both local to each other.

Also that amount of rust surprises me as San Antonio is pretty far from a rust prone spot.

 

Nice work. I've seen trucks scrapped because of shitty windshield installs not getting caught before it was way too late. Looks like you got to this one in time.

Not at all to thread hijack, but you mentioned POR-15 - the reason some swear by it and some swear it's trash is that it (like many specialty products) gets used for the wrong application, and/or applied poorly. It gets billed as a magic fix, but the actual "magic" is in the extremely time consuming prep, which Bubba usually doesn't do well, and then gets bad results. The level of prep you did for your repair is the minimum of what I would do for POR-15 (clean to bare metal, zinc etch, degrease), so you can imagine that most people looking for magic in a can will not be doing that to an entire frame.

Anyway, as I said before, nice work, and for future reference, those little hooks you see at the top of the sill are what often cause issues with windshield replacements. They need to be bent out of the way if the replacement glass doesn't have the same alignment notches the OEM glass has, and a lot of shops with less experienced or motivated technicians don't know or don't care, or, as you've seen, assume that bigger globs will take care of it.

 

Meyer Glass co off Zarzamora.

Yeah, the amount of rust for it being here in SA is surprising. I’ve only taken her to the beach a handful of time and I clean the truck before leaving. I think was made it so bad was the fact water and debris could get in but not out. This ends up creating liquid sand paper basically and the running vehicle vibrates it around.

 

I couldn’t agree more. Most of the time when I see someone bash a product, I lean towards them likely having done something wrong. In this case, with everything I saw, the applications I read it being used in, had me on the fence. Where it was a, “this may or may not work” so rather than spend the money and more time, I decided to go with what I think is some of the more powerful stuff you can just buy off the shelf. So there would be no question if it’s going to work.