Paint and Body Tips Or Tricks For Pulling A Windshield? - All Glass Out!!!

Thanks for all the tips guys! These are exactly what I needed. I'll post an update with pics when I get them out.

Bossed said:

The #1 tip I'll give is don't get in a hurry. The thin wire and handles, that some have spoke of worked great for the windshield. If you have a Harbor Freight near you, they carry the wire and handles as a kit. The rear glass was the original with butyl rubber. I used a putty knife and sprayed Free All penetrant on the rubber. It softened the rubber and kept the putty knife from sticking to the sticky rubber.

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I picked up that windshield kit at HF last weekend. Did you use it just for the front glass? And when you were doing the back glass, you were inside the car with a putty knife trying to separate the butyl strip from the glass? I'm worried about scratching the dark edge that goes all the way around it

JMGlasgow said:

Cold knife, or square stainless steel wire and T-handles like we used when I worked at Safelite Auto Glass. The back window is usually held in with butyl rubber and is fairly easy unless it's been replaced, then it will probably be bonded with polyurethane adhesive. It doesn't cost too much to have a glass company just remove the glass. Pull the trim yourself and it may get cheaper as well.

Look on the Equalizer website. DO NOT use a pipeknife, they are dangerous, and can damage the pinch weld area.

If the back glass is still held in with butyl rubber, spray it down heavily with glass cleaner (Sprayway not Windex). It won't make near as much of a mess. Wear rubber gloves to keep that stuff off your hands.

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I was quoted $325 to pull the glass on a completely stripped car and they kept saying "when it breaks" so many times that I almost hung up. I know it's old and thin and crappy, but don't tell me you're going to break my glass before you even touch it! So it looks like I'm going to give it a go. I know that I will have much more time to spend on it than they would and I'll just go super slow and be patient. Can you tell me what a pipeknife is? If I don't know then I'm pretty sure I don't have one, lol

The back glass is out! I used a lot of heat and even more patience carefully scraping the butyl away from the glass with a very thin putty knife. After about an hour of scraping it popped right out! I'm nervous about the front glass, I've heard horror stories about it breaking just from looking at it wrong. Wish me luck, I'll be attempting the front this week!

JMGlasgow said:

Good luck. The windshield can't take as much flexing as the rear. Go slow, work the wire through the urethane, and be careful to keep the wire off of your VIN tag and interior parts such as dash, headliner, A pillar covers, etc.

I haven't found any good videos showing proper use of the wire. Maybe I'll need to make one.

Don't use heat on the front, you can discolor or bubble the laminate core. Have a helper guide the wire so it doesn't damage your interior. Wear kevlar or heavy leather gloves, glass splinters suck, and the wire can cut you.

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Thanks for all of the tips man! My interior is gutted so I won't have anything to worry about except for breaking it. You should make a video, there aren't very many on youtube. I've been searching like crazy the past week.

All of the glass is out!!! I searched everywhere for tips when I thought about doing this myself, so I'll leave some here for the next guy.

I ended up using the harbor freight windshield removal kit pictured above. I poked the wire through from the outside of the car on the driver side lower corner. I had the wire attached to one handle already and then attached it to the other side once I fed it through. Since I was doing this by myself, I kept the wire nice and short, 12-18", so I could work it back and forth without having to use my go-go gadget arms. Once the wire was fed through, I tried to keep it parallel to the edge of the glass and down and away from the actual edge. It's hard to explain, but you don't really want to pull up and have the wire riding on the edge of the glass. You are just trying to slice through the urethane seal and it doesn't matter how much of the seal you leave on the glass. Go as slow as humanly possible, working back and forth slow and methodically. The corners were pretty tricky because you don't want to force the wire in a way it doesn't want to go. Just take your time and let the wire lead the way.

I went up and around the top of the glass and I thought I was home free until I hit the shims on the bottom. There are two sets of shims under the front glass. On the passenger side the shim was loose and I was able to carefully pry it out. I used the clip for the cowl trim to pry against, never use the glass for leverage!!! Once I got to the driver side shim, that sucker was wedged in tight. I used the wire as close to the shim as I could get and then I took a box cutter and sliced the seal from the inside of the car to try and separate it from the glass. All of this took place right over my VIN tag, so I had to be extra careful not to scratch it. I made a few passes with the knife to make sure I cut through the seal. Then I had to pull the wire out and poke it back through the seal after the shims. I ended up making another pass around the whole glass with the wire to make sure the glass was freed up.

I went back inside the car and gently pushed against the very top of the very center of the glass. You'll be amazed at how thin the windshield really is, so you don't want to twist the glass at all. Once the top pushed out a few inches I made sure the bottom edge was free too by trying to lift up slightly. I had the suction cups on the glass to make it easier to handle too. My neighbor helped me carefully lift the glass up and out once I was sure the seal had completely released. We picked it up and out by the edges, I don't really trust those suction cups at all.

Once we got it out, guess what we found?? MORE RUST!!! I really want to go on a rant right now about everyone who claims to have a rust free Fox, but I'll bite my tongue. All that I will say is I challenge you to take your doors and fenders off and tell me you still have a rust free car. Ford spot welded these cars together and painted them with the doors on and didn't spray behind the fenders or in the cowl worth a f*ck. Unless your car has lived in AZ it's whole life and never seen rain, your junk is rusty too! Can you tell I'm sick of RUST!!??

Here's a few pics of the windshield removal process. If you are doing this yourself and have questions hit me up.



Passenger side shims pried up easily


This is where I had to slice through with the box cutter, the wire wouldn't feed past the rusty clip or shims.

Glass is out!!!


Rust near the factory seam

JMGlasgow said:

That rust is usually caused by glass installers using the wrong tool for the job, scratching the pinch weld, and not bothering to prime and seal the scratches back up. Adhesive urethane for glass is a moisture curing adhesive. And the environment around the windshield is very conducive to rapid rust deterioration.

Whoever installed that glass did an absolute terrible job. Scrape the urethane off the pinch weld, wire wheel the rust, use a phosphoric acid dilution to convert the rust that is left, and prime the the area. DO NOT use body filler in the pinch weld area. As long as there are no holes in pinch weld, it'll be safe to bond the glass to the car.

I recommend Sika brand products for pinch weld prep and autoglass urethane. PM me and I'll give you my phone number to walk you through pinch weld prep to get the best protection and bond possible for your windshield and back glass.

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Well, the glass has never been out before, so it looks like Ford dropped the ball. I've seen several other Foxes with rust in the same spot, pretty common. There is a factory seam there that wasn't painted very well. The rust isn't as bad as it looks in pics so I think I'll be alright. I appreciate the offer man, I'll take any help that I can get!