Cracked Windshield Repaired

Some of you have been bugging me to get my cracked windshield on my van fixed for maybe five years or so. Two separate objects hit my windshield and the cracks have been slowly growing toward one another. It's actually slowed considerably since I started parking in my garage at night, though.

In the past few months, KE4UVJ has been following me all around campus, shouting at me that I haven't gotten it fixed yet. He's even stopped by my office twice and that's only counting the times I was there. Loads of people have reminded me that glass companies often come out to wherever you are and fix it while you're at work. Well, I finally scheduled an appointment on-line. SafeLite, recommended by A Better Wrench, came out to my van yesterday and replaced it.


Some people thought that the glass companies wouldn't even need my key to replace a windshield. Fortunately, that isn't correct. You can see Aaron, here,using an oscillating power chisel thingy, from the inside, in order to remove the old windshield. I say "fortunately" because otherwise there would be all these people impersonating glass companies and breaking into people's cars that way. My Second Most Faithful Reader took these great photos and he said that removing the old one looks as if it's a tremendous amount of work,because it's very difficult to remove the old gasket.
Here Aaron is puting on the suction cups so he can pick up the new windshield.

A powered caulking gun is used to heat and apply the new adhesive.

Once he put a bead of adhesive all the way around the edge, he had six minutes to put the new windshield in place.
Isn't it beautiful? I'm very pleased with it. On Monday, all the area's gravel trucks will change their routes in order to match my commute. You can seen even more photos here.