When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I'm FINALLY to the point where I can start focusing on non-essential things, and one of those on the list of things is the glass. The front glass has what best can be described as specs all over it, and some scratches here and there. Each of the other windows have some scratches in them as well. Is there something that can be done about the specs/scratches, or am I just going to have to bite the bullet and get new glass? Naturally as I finally decide to type this, I look through the phone and realize I don't have that great of a picture of it..so when I get off work I'll snap a couple shots and throw them up here for reference.
This depends on several things. How many scratches? Where are they located? How DEEP are they? The last one is the most important. The rule of thumb I've always heard is that if a scratch is deep enough that you can feel it if you run your fingernail over it, it's too deep to polish out. Not because it can't be polished out, but because polishing it enough to remove that deep of a scratch will also decrease the thickness of the glass at that point, and the view through the window at that point will become distorted. So that's why location matters as well. If these deep scratches are in the line of sight through the windshield for someone sitting in the driver's seat, that's bad. It's also, I think, against the law. But if the deep scratches are off to the side somewhere or near an edge, that's not a part of the windshield you normally look through, so a little distortion there is probably tolerable.
My '77 Toronado had windshield wiper scratches, mostly on the driver's side, when I got it. They were never going to polish out. I took the car to a local glass shop, and they were able find, in only a few hours, a brand-new (NOS, I think) windshield for the car, and it was well worth the money. You don't realize how tired a 50-year-old windshield can be, even one that doesn't have much in the way of serious scratches, until you put it side by side with a new one.
Keep in mind, also, that it's a lot of work to remove scratches, even with a polishing wheel. If no new windshield is available, and you can't find one in a junkyard, polishing is probably the only choice. But you'd be surprised how easy it can be to find new windshields for our old cars.
Here's before and after photos of the '77. Some of the best money I ever spent on the car.
Here are a couple pictures.. they aren't great, but they should get the point across..
If I need new glass, then it is what it is. I just wasn't sure if there's a way to fix them.
You'll never get all of that out. Not even close. You can't polish the entire windshield without introducing distortions everywhere, and it will end up looking weird if you can do it at all.
You'll never get all of that out. Not even close. You can't polish the entire windshield without introducing distortions everywhere, and it will end up looking weird if you can do it at all.
I think that a new windshield will improve the look of the car like you can't believe. It really is worth it.
In addition to my '77 Toro, I needed a new windshield for my '73 Delta 88, which I bought about a year ago. This one had a large, radiating crack low in the center of the windshield like it had been hit by a rock. The photo below is the best I have of the crack, and I put a red arrow pointing at it.
The car had recently been transported from Pennsylvania to my area in Michigan (I found it on the lot of an auto restoration shop), and maybe a rock was thrown up and hit it while it was on the truck.
Here's what it looked like with the new glass in place. The new glass even had the in-glass radio antenna that was correct for this car.
Anyway, I tried Safelite, and they couldn't help me. Their website assures you that they can work on cars this old, but the individual Safelite shops make their own decisions about this, and none near me would actually do it. I asked one of them if they could recommend a shop in the area, and they gave me the name of mom-and-pop auto glass shop that I never would have found on my own, and these people were great. I called them on a Wednesday, they said they could have a new piece of glass by Friday, and we set it up for the following Monday. I brought the car in first thing in the morning, and I had it back by mid-afternoon. It looked just beautiful. These people are apparently quite used to working on old cars. In the shop while mine was there was an early '70s Cadillac Eldorado into which they were putting a new rear window. I don't know if the window was used or actually new, but they obviously had something that would work.
So don't give up if you find that the name glass shops can't or won't work on your car. Look for the local shop. It was the same for my '77 Toro. A local shop tucked down an alley on the edge of town that I only was aware of because I once saw one of their trucks around town and jotted down the phone number on the side. The place may have looked like it had seen better days, but the guys inside knew their stuff and took pride in it.
Last edited by jaunty75; April 19th, 2024 at 02:19 PM.
I couldn't get Safelite to install the windshield in my '72 442 convertible. I finally had a local mom-n pop shop do it for me; they installed a Pilkington windshield part# DW00752GBNNCOM. Cost me $267.40
I have had great success polishing my factory glass. Did a lot of experimenting with different compounds, polishers and technique. #1 thing I learned through the journey is factory glass is HARD and TOUGH. All the fears about keeping the temp down and not getting it too hot - not true. The glass can take it, trust me. What worked for me is - 600-1000 rpm rotary polisher with foam head and firm backer, and pure cerium oxide powder mixed with water to a thin paste. It dries as you use it and it slings all over so you need a lot. Like as in a pound or more. Mark the scratches with red sharpie on the inside, black sharpie on the outside. Because some you can't tell what side they are on....Glass has to be off the car! Can't come close to doing this job without being able to bear down for a long time, plus you don't want pink abrasive all over and inside the door tracks. Takes several sessions per side to get 100% slick and I had no problem with distortions as I polished the whole pc evenly.
April 18th, 2024, 04:51 AM
