Read Part I and Part II first.
Wednesday morning I carefully peel off the blue painter’s tape. The windshield still looks a little low, but the gasket fills the gap in the corners. Donna took the afternoon off, so I took her home and drove back to work uneventfully, if you don’t count the weird look out the back through the magnifying squared off mirror.
After work about a mile from the Valve Store, on my way to the glass shop, I start to hear a slight whistle. What the heck could that be? Then I notice a thin line of black peek above the windshield header on the passenger side. As I’m cruising along at 45 MPH the line turns into a loop growing in size and starting to flap around like one of those inflatable wacky waving arm tube men, now, with whistling sounds. As I slow while approaching a stoplight, the flapping and whistling decreases until at around 20 MPH it stops. But of course as soon as I get back above 20 it starts all over again. To limit the distraction, after I’ve shifted into 3rd I drive along with my right hand up above the header holding down the gasket. I have no idea if that looks even remotely normal, but at least the whistling is stopped.
When I enter the shop, a fellow I haven’t seen before (the owner?) is there and he greets me with, “How you doing?” “Not good,” I reply, “My windshield still isn’t right.” He picks up a box and says, “I can fix that, got your new mirror right here.” I tell him, “That’s just the half of it. Come outside, I’ll show you.” He takes one look at the car and says, “The gasket has come unstuck. We’ve had a rash of that happen lately. Its the cheap glue they’re putting on them now.”
Now that the gasket is out of the channel I can see that the glass itself is still a 1/4 inch low all around the top, so I ask owner guy, “Is this the right piece of glass? When I blacked out the windshield surround on my previous similar car I had a hard time getting the vinyl under the gasket here at the top glass because it was way up here.” “Or considering your little mirror trick,” I say, “Maybe you lost the two blocks that support the bottom of the glass and put something else in there.” “Oh no,” he says, “Those two are in there. What I’ll have do is pull the window back off and cut a 1/4″ thick piece of rubber to place on top of them to lift the glass.” “Can you leave the car with us?”
So for the second time in three nights the CTBNL spends the night in the shop at B & B Glass.
to be continued…