Has any one gotten a windshield that fits

on my fourth windshield. they are all to wide. the one I just received looks like they bent in the corners before it cooled, its nasty. the windshield is dated 11-17-2016
are their any other makers besides Pilkington. I do have the original triplex windshield but it has the usual issues of wear. thought pilkington was going to produce a new mold after learning of this issue. any ideas sure would like to get the car on the road this spring after a 25 year siesta

Perhaps you want to remind us what model this is for.

The Pilkingtons have always fit well on my S2 OTS, the most recent being 2016.

You might want to peruse this thread on the subject for people you can contact.

http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8029

You can find my threads on the subject from a few years back on this forum. The one I ordered from them was ungodly wide and I got a refund on it. I had hoped that after people worked with them on it and demonstrated the problem with their forms, that they would have addressed the issue for all models but apparently they either haven’t yet or, they’re still sending out old stock that has the problem. I suggest you reach out to them in the UK to explain your dilemma. You aren’t going to get any help from the US office. I was able to get one installed that Classic Jaguar had sitting on their shelf. I think I just got lucky with the fit. I don’t know of any other screen suppliers currently.

this is a 69 FHC all of the glass has been 3/8 to 5/8 to wide

Mine was 5/8" also. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s huge and there is no workaround. As an experiment I tried grinding back the corners of the glass so that the inner side to side measurement was closer to 1/8" too wide. It shrunk the pane so much that the gasket wouldn’t fully cover both it and the mounting rib on the car.

what did you end up doing for a windshield

As I mentioned above, Classic Jaguar was able to find one that fit from their stock and they installed it for me. Mine’s an OTS though, so that may be one of the ones that Pilkington has reworked their mold for.

Angus Moss and myself went down to Pilkington Classic along with an original 1966 FHC windscreen because everyone was having so much trouble fitting the available ones. We found the former they were using had been damaged and repaired (badly!) so all windscreens produced up to that point using that former were the wrong shape (see the above link for photos). They are a great group of guys and agreed to waive the ÂŁ15,000 cost of producing new mould and former as long as they could borrow the original screen to do so. I have got to hand it to Angus as he readily agreed despite this being from his beautiful original and unrestored car. The new windscreens are now available but you must quote the correct codes:

CL= clear; GN = green

You can contact Nick Gardiner MD directly if you want to order one or do so via a Pilkington Classic supplier: Nick.gardiner@NSG.Com

You can have the screen with embedded radio aerial or heater at extra cost. These screens come complete with the original period Triplex logo in the correct location.

David

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David,

Would you happen to know whether they ever examined their other forms for aging/deformation? I started several threads here a few years back because the replacement S1 OTS screen from them was so wide. A number of people who purchased around the same time had the very same issue. It was very noticeably wider (less bent) than my original screen. I still have the original one and they’re welcome to it if it helps resolve the issues.

As far as I know it was only the FHC former that had been damaged. They have thousands of screen moulds which are carefully stored and they were quite shocked that this one had been repaired. Also I have not heard of complaints about the OTS screen otherwise the issue would have been raised at the time. The FHC screens were cracking after they had been fitted because the curvature was wrong.

David

It may just be that the molds have lost their original shape over time, but yeah there have been a rash of screens that had the same issue that mrferrari is struggling with, insufficient curvature at the corners. It seems to be getting worse over time because the one I purchased was completely uninstallable. It protruded at the lower corners by over 1/4" and the upper chrome trim didn’t fit on it. It might have cracked from the pressure, but it didn’t even get that far. Although it was possible to get it into the seal and zipped up, none of the chrome trim could be fitted.

the windshields I have been getting are 3/8 to 5/8 wide there is no way you can fit the glass with out breaking it, I ask the sales person and they say they have never had a problem and have no idea about the factory mold issue. OK sure!!! Going to try contacting Pilkington UK and see what they can do… they are easy to measure if right or wrong so their is no reason to send out bad ones. this is gone on for over a year now

It does not work that way. There are two parts to the process. The wooden buck is used to make a 3 part metal mould and then to check each screen as it comes off the mould. The FHC buck we saw was built in 1961 and a work of art. It was made of hardwood and varnished to protect it. Looks like someone dropped it from a height or drove over it then repaired it with metal strips held together with pozidrive screws. As the buck is the master the metal mould would have been adjusted to match it, hence our problems. There is a video online which shows the manufacturing process. They have bucks/moulds going back to the 1930’s for everything from Rolls Royce to Ferrari - basically any car you can think of. The construction and storage should prevent any deterioration.

I think they are taught that during the afternoon session of Day 1 in any sales training course.

I wonder if it’s the same chap that told me they’d never had a complaint…4 years ago. :rofl:

OTS Pilkington windshield fitted 2016, all fine.

My shop just installed a Triple X Sundym windshield in my 1971 Series 3 2+2 FHC. Seems to fit nicely.

its the 2seater FHC that has the windshield issue. but you do prove they can make them correctly for other cars, how many bad windshields are out their. may try to have the original sanded and polished, it fits

I wouldn’t waste much time on this plan unless yours is only very lightly stuffed it scratched. I came up with the same plan and started reaching out to companies that specialize in glass polishing. I even attempted to do it myself with the Eastman kit. I managed to get out a curved line that a bad wiper blade cut into it, but didn’t even make a dent in the hundreds of teeny tiny pits from years of road rash. This is exactly what every professional told me. You could polish for 100 hours and those pits would still be there, and all that time spend polishing would have introduced new optical distortions.

I am curious if the attempts at polishing glass have included the full method of starting with 100grit diamond pads on a wet grinder and moving up step by step to 3000 grit and then finishing with the polishing paste on a buffing pad. This is the method used for polishing granite and even concrete and theoretically should work to remove enough surface material to eliminate mild grit scouring. I intend to try this on the glass from my ots when I reach that stage of the restoration to try to preserve the original triplex glass. Has anyone had experience with this?