Broken Windshield [damn!!!!]

Hi all,

As usual with all things Ferrari, this repair is turning into an adventure.

We tore into the car today and removed the old windshield and with due care removed all the old trim with no damage. After removing all the old adhesive and a good cleaning they are ready for re-install. That is the good news.

The old glass was Sigla:

Sigla
QB ------------ D177
AS-1-DOT-26-M95
NE-00037
EI 43R-001047
WHLPF

The new glass was Triplex:

Triplex
DOT-17-17471-AS1
E11 43R-00075

Who knows what all that means, but bottom line, the new windshield does not fit the car. Mario of Silmar Glass did a dry mount of the new glass and unfortunately the curvature of the glass is significantly less than required. This is the bad news.

The original glass sits flush with the frame, the new glass sits up about 3/4" in both bottom corners. From inside the car there is a HUGE gap between the windshield and the dash and trim. Mario did not want to install this windshield for fear of creating a stress crack in the glass when attempting to "snug" it down in those corners.

The glass was advertised to fit Ferrari 308/328 GTB/GTS. Pilkington's number on the invoice is HT0998 CLBL. The blue tint extended over a band 6.5" wide on the original windshield. The new glass had a tint band but it only extended over 4.5". Finally the new glass has the black border to allow use of urethane adhesive, the old glass was in with butyl adhesive and did not have the black border to protect the urethane against UV exposure.

I'll post pictures a little later tonight when I am finished cleaning up and repacking the windshield for return to Pilkington Classics.

Finally, there is significant corrosion in the sheet metal at the bottom corners of the windshield. I guess there is always a little space there that water gets into and sits. Luckily I now have time to remediate that rust properly as it will be at least another week before I have another windshield here. That is the good news.

I will now be able to find a Sigla OEM windshield [hopefully] and now know enough to ask if it has a good curvature to it. Mario postulates that sometimes when they take the glass out of the mold during manufacture some product retains a better curve than some other product. The glass guys apparently know this. The Sigla glass that they get delivered to FoH gets an immediate dry fit and on several occasions glass has had to be sent back for just this reason.

Live and learn eh!

So now starts the search for proper OEM Sigla glass. I'll keep you posted on how that goes over the next few days. Also on how the return to Pilkington goes. Hopefully there won't be an issue there.

Paul

 

Oh yeah, I was able to heat the old windshield on the outside where the Ferrari emissions decal was and carefully remove that decal without damaging it.

I then put it between two sheets of wax paper, threw a cloth over it and ironed it flat again.

Looks great [pics later today].

A little spray of adhesive and it will install nicely on my new windshield when I find one and it gets installed.

Ciao
Paul

 

Here are some pics from today:

I show the Sigla glass after we removed it, and dropped it back in to test it's fit as a dry install. If fit well and sat down flush all the way around. It sat that way before we removed it as well so no big surprise.

The rest of the pics show the Triplex glass upon dry install. Note the lack of curvature at the bottom on both the driver's and passenger's side. I include snaps from outside and inside. The inside snaps, especially the passenger side, show how nasty that poor fit looks from the inside.

To get the glass to sit down on the frame required over 3/4" of a tight bend in the corner. Mario wanted no part of trying that just to see if we could make it fit. At $780 per test if it failed, neither did I.

More on the story on Monday when I get in touch with Pilkington.

Paul
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Hi Big Tex,

Yes I expect I just got unlucky. Hopefully the next windshield in will be a better fit.

Hmmm, the more I dig around [on the P car lists] the more it seems that West German Sigla glass is no more and that Sigla glass is now under Pilkington [Australian]. So, since the Pilkington glass didn't fit the car that leaves me with the French Sekurit/Saint Gobain option. I see that option listed in various places for about US$1350. That's almost double the Pilkington/Sigla option, but if it fits it would be worth it. It also seems that the shift away from Sigla to Sekurit/Saint Gobain at Ferrari occurred about mid 80's. I wonder how many 84 QV's have Sigla OEM glass and how many have Sekurit?

Seems the suppliers are out on Saturday so I'll continue this thread on Monday morning after I have had a chance to talk to a few of them. It is one thing to list the windshield. It is another to actually have one.

With NO windshield in the car at this point I find myself motivated to get this done

The kids will be visiting at Christmas and it would be a shame to have the 308 down while they are here. I know they are lusting for a ride.

Paul

 

I just got off the phone with Pilkington Classics. I explained the situation to them and they are giving me a full credit for the windshield. Apparently they have this problem with some 308's. They sell about 30 of these windshields a year and in about 5 of those cases the glass just doesn't fit into the corners. Interesting. Are these cars that different car to car?

It is also true that Pilkington did take over Sigla, but for some reason the US arm gets its glass from the Triplex outfit [OE for Jag, Lotus etc.] in the UK, rather than the Sigla outfit in Germany where the original glass was produced.

So....I guess I will try the Sekurit/Saint Gobains option and see how that works.

I'll post again when I have more information on that one.

Paul

 

Wow. I just got off the phone with Hagerty to find out if the glass was covered under my policy. The short answer is yes, and as a bonus at $0.00 deductible!!!

They also have no problem working with me while we go through the sourcing and installation of the appropriate glass. Whoever I eventually find to supply the glass will be paid by them as will Mario from Silmar Glass.

This is very good news. They were very happy to help me out and even gave me a couple of more numbers for glass source [Ferrari Parts Exchange and Glass Seekers]. I will give those guys a call shortly.

Unfortunately I have to get back to work so it might not be until later today or tomorrow before the rest of this story unfolds.

Bonus morning though knowing that I am covered for this. Three cheers for Hagerty.

Paul

 

Here is some useful information for those of us with OEM Sigla windshields. It turns out there were two windshield styles made for the 308/328 series. The current Sigla/Pilkington Classics numbers on these windshields is 3118 and 3121. The 3121 has greater curvature in the corners at the bottom of the pillars. This is the windshield that I need. The 3118 has less curvature. That is the windshield I currently have. The number on the windshield sticker is actually 3118ACLBL.

Pilkington in the US does not have the 3121 windshield in stock.

I found this out from IRA at Glass Seekers in New York. He is a fountain of great information on all things glass for exotica. If you have a hard to find glass issue on an insurance claim you will likely be sent to him [Hagerty, Geico etc.]

I have also found nine Sekurit/Saint Gobain OEM windshields up in Goodrich Tx, with the 6.5" blue tint and without the black border [UV protection for urethane adhesive]. Five of these windshields are marked "do not fit", the other 4 are marked "do fit". I am optimistic that one of these is comparable to the 3118 Sigla series and the other is comparable to the 3121 Sigla series which I need.

I will know tomorrow as I plan on gently placing the 3118 windshield in the back of my suburban and driving the 70 miles up to the shop where these windshields exist. I will make the critical measurement from the base of the glass to the corners and see how the deflection looks relative to the 3118 version.

I am hoping to find two deflections. If I do, I will grab the one with the greater curvature and bring it back to the shop for installation.

As usual I will post again when I get to the end of this chapter.

Paul

 

Hi,

I drove up to Goodrich Tx today with my Pilkington/Sigla 3118 windshield. I compared it against the two styles of Sekurit/Saint Gobain stock that Matt at Re-Originals Inc. had.

The first difference was the thickness of the glass. The Sekurit glass was 6.1mm while the Sigla was 5.1mm. My original Sigla windshield is 5.01 mm.

The Sekurit glass had a 6.5 inch blue tint strip across the top. The Pilkington/Sigla was 4.5 inch. My original Sigla glass had a 6.5 inch strip.

The Sekurit glass has no black strip around the windshield. The Pilkington/Sigla glass has a very pronounced black border. My OEM Sigla windshield has a black border that appears to be either painted on or simply there due to the years of contact with the adhesive. It is less than half the thickness of the Pilkington/Sigla border.

Both of the Sekurit styles displayed more curvature than the Pilkington/Sigla 3118 windshield. The most curved windshield had about 3/4" more curvature and the least curved of the Sekurit windshields had about 1/2" more curvature. Remember that I needed about 3/4" more curvature to sit down in the corners at the base of the pillars.

So, I grabbed one of the Sekurit/Saint Gobain 3/4" more curvature options and brought it home. I have made an appointment with Mario to come over on Saturday and attempt the installation again. At this point the 1mm difference in windshield thickness is about the only thing that might cause us some grief. Time will tell.

In summary, Pilkington/Sigla can supply two windshields of differing curvature, one is 3118 the other is 3121. Sekurit/Saint Gobain also appears to have two different curvatures but neither is the same as the 3118 Pilkington/Sigla, while one appears to match the 3121 Pilkington/Sigla. Of course I don't have a 3121 Pilkington/Sigla to measure so there is some conjecture here that the 3121 would indeed fit my car.

Paul

 

Alas, I don't. Sorry.

Mario from FoH will be here tomorrow at noon to install the windshield. Hopefully we make it past the dry fit this time. Assuming success, I still have to call Ira at Glass Seekers and bring him up to date. He is the one that put me on to the 3118/3121 situation with Sigla. I will ask him about the 328 series and let you know what he has to say. I'll also ask Matt at Reoriginals if he has had issues with supplying Sekurit/Saint Gobain windshields for 328's and again let you know.

Paul

 

Today Mario [glassman from FoH] came out to my shop and we did a dry fit of the Sekurit glass into my 84 QV.

The good news is that the curvature of the glass seems about right and fits nicely down into the corners.

The bad news is that the windshield is a little bit too big and needs to have some custom grinding done around the edges to actually fit my car. When we fit the glass, it sits on top of two of the clips. One on the passenger side at the base of the window and one on the passenger side pillar near the bottom. A couple of the other clips, the top one on the passenger pillar and the two on the driver's pillar are snug up against the glass which is a no-no as glass to metal contact is where stress cracks get started.

The other bad news is that the extra 1mm of thickness IS an issue. I didn't realize it, but in retrospect I should have, that when Ferrari installed the original windshield at the factory it did a custom fit for my car. I expect this is the same for every Ferrari ever made. They did a little grinding on the original glass AND did a lot of grinding on the original trim. Since the original windshield was 5.1mm thick the custom work on the trim piece at the base of the windshield was done for that thickness of glass. With a 1mm thicker glass it seems that the trim at the base will not likely engage the clips properly.

Since the glass wouldn't sit down properly, due to hanging up on a couple of the clips, we couldn't really do a test fit of the base trim. We did a test fit of the upper trim on the driver's side and while it clipped in at the base of the pillar it was just barely catching at the top and that was without any adhesive in place.

Finally since the glass has no black border Mario will need to paint one on prior to installation. It turns out that the other purpose of that border is to present a straight black line to the occupant and hide any wiggle of adhesive that would otherwise be in plain sight.

Sigh...............................

So I have two options.

Option 1 is have the current windshield custom ground to fit and hope that we will be able to install the trim with the 1mm thicker glass. This may be worth a shot as the slight amount of grinding that needs to be done [see pics below] would not stop this glass from fitting any other car and so if it doesn't work due to thickness I could still return it to Matt. I'll have to verify this with Matt before trying. Otherwise I'll just have to drive this one back up to his shop and call it a day.

Option 2 get with Ira at Glass Seekers and have the Pilkington/Sigla 3121 glass ordered and shipped from Europe. This will take longer and probably result in the car not being back on the road when my kids get here for Christmas. But it would be the correct thickness for my car and trim and hopefully would have the correct amount of curvature to fit. It would also have the black border in place but also like have the 4.5 inches of tint rather than the original 6.5". It may also still need some grinding however and we wouldn't know that until Mario has done one more dry fit.

What do you all think???????

Here are the latest pics:
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No, but it is repairs like this that let you know just how special your car really is

To be honest I am quite enjoying the process. I am NOT enjoying not driving the car, but when it is finally installed I will have a route to the next windshield which I am sure I will need if I continue to put 9000+ miles on the car each year, and continue to drive the freeways in Houston.