Rob, I too have heard about recent Pantera windscreen rubbers that dont fit, made in China of course.
Dont even consider joining the corners yourself. I have done it on a Mangusta but it took all day just to make the fixture.
I suggest anyone that needs a windscreen rubber should get it form Roland Jaeckel in Germany. His rubbers fit perfectly and have the vulcanised corners not glued. He charges 190 euros + shipping to customers outside of Europe. roland@jaeckel-partner.de
The windscreen in my Pantera is not original and too small. With a correct size windscreen the rubber is pushed tightly against the body and they should not leak with no silicone at all.
When I installed my windscreen the first time I used the wrong silicone and it always leaked. The tube was marked "windscreen sealant" "will never dry or crack" This type of sealant does not dry like shiny rubber but more like tar that keeps creeping from under the rubber onto the glass and makes an ugly mess. After 6 years it totally dried out and fell out of the rubber in hard lumps. Never use this type!
The second time I installed the windscreen I used generic black silicone that drys shiny. I put it into the rubber and then put the rubber on the glass. I then installed the stainless trims into the rubber. Next I put the silicone into the outside bit of the rubber that seals on the steel pinch weld lip of the car.
This mean you cant use a rope to install it because the rope would pull all the silicon into the car. I found that after placing the windscreen in the aperture it is possible (with two people) to hook most of the bottom over the lip and then slowly pick the rest of the rubber a bit at a time with a large pick tool like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/picks-se...&hash=item1c1716e044 Dont know the seller.
I was able to pull quite a lot of the rubber over the lip with just my fingers. I did not remove my dash I simply covered the top in masking tape and them polythene. The reason I used polythene is because I cleaned up the oozing silicone with lacquer thinners.
My Pantera is now totally water proof, not one drop gets in. This makes me very happy every time I get caught in the rain.
It very important NOT to bang the windscreen with the palm of you hand or with a soft hammer in any way. This is totally unnecessary. It's also important to sit the bottom edge of the windscreen on something soft if you lean it against the wall.
When I bought my car the stainless trims had already been bent by someone pulling them out of the rubber with the windscreen still in the car. I did not know they where bent until after I had repainted them and installed them in the car. Like Jack says they never sat down properly in the corners because they where not the same shape as the glass. This pissed me off for years until the second time I installed the windscreen and I fixed them.
The only way to fix them is to mechanically shrink the edge on a shrinker. The only problem with this is there is a little 3mm (1/8") lip that holds it in the rubber. This lip would be crushed by the saws of the shrinker. I got over this by placing two pieces of 3mm thick steel on the trim so the jaws cant crush the lip. I left a gap for the metal to be shrunk into. It worked perfectly. I lay the trims on the edge of the glass and kept shrinking until they where the same profile.
I did not know there was a right and wrong silicone like Jack says. Mine did smell of vinegar! Next time I will use the stuff they bond windscreens in with.
The pic below shows my trim before I made it fit the glass.
Johnny
). The number following the "AS" indicates the position in which the glass may be used, based on its optical quality. AS-1 is the clearest glass (at least 70% light transmission), is laminated, and can be used anywhere in a motor vehicle (typically just the windshield). AS-2 and AS-3 cannot be used for windshields.
