Hello all... Doing some cut metal work for a client today and found some things I thought you may find interesting.
I know we've all seen our share of bubbling around the windscreens. In NC we have pretty good luck metal wise, but even at that I bet at least 75% of the cars I handle have some degree of rust in the windscreen chanel.
I decided to try something new removing the windscreen. I wasn't concerned with the glass or trim, so I took a torch and heated the rubber molding holding the windscreen in place. Normally that is so hard you can barely cut through it, but burning it really helped. Anything that is brown around the white paint isn't rust, it's where the torch had burned the rubber...
I also took some time and really ground the channels down, trying to get to bare metal. So you see an assortment of white, brown, black and silver in the photos... it's just different levels of paint, burn, primer and bare metal.
I've always found the way the metal folds in and joins together rather fascinating... One thing I didn't ever put together mentally was that where the different pieces of metal join together on the upper side of the channel it's attached with spot welds, and there is also some lapping metal there. What appears to happen is when the water gets into the channel and sits on the spot welds, that is the beginning of the rust through..
There is also one spot on the rear that is problematic... The same support that causes the straight line rusted spot on the rear wing also extends to under the rear windscreen. That's a bad spot for moisture to accumulate..
Unfortunately the only real suggestion I have to help with it is to put POR15 in the channels if you ever have cause to remove the windscreens...
But I did think it was interesting to track down some the cause of the problems...

Cheers
David
shop.EverydayXJ.com

 

David!
You're still in business!
That's So great!

I hope Never to have to replace either windscreen (no bubbling to this point in either one) but I'll save this post to remind me to rust-proof the whole area if the need ever arises.

It's so good to see you survived the hurricane and resulting flooding.
(';')

 

I add my "DITTO" as well.


And another great necropsy on a cat to assist in keeping other cats sound and on the road.

In most cases, I expect that closing the seam by weld is not practical.

But, I have read of modern type "glues" used to fasten steel panels in lieuy of weld that might be the product to close those seams.

Or even "dum dum" used by some makers to close seams. A type of "caulk" for metal.

Carl

 

David - I seem to be getting the formation of the dreaded rear fender hole (see photo). Is there a drain tube or drain channel that runs through that area? Perhaps the gas cap scuttle drain?
​​​​​​​since there is a rather straight, raised 'line' that must be undersurface rust - I figure there is a channel or body seam under there?

​​​​​​

 

I may have answered my own question. My problem seems to be the area which you called the "Baffle at the gas tank". I see this looks severely rusted on your cut-up XJ6.

 

Just tackled this issue this week on the front windscreen. I had the bubbling at the corners but got lucky - only surface rust was present. I don't think the screen had been out before; whoever put it in did a lousy job. A thump heard going over bumps turned out to be the screen loose in its channel around over 50% of the glass perimeter - that made removal rather easy. Removal of the screen revealed a nice cast of the window channel.

It's back in now and curing. Now on to the sunroof gasket.