Windshield

When we first laid it up to the ship, putting it mildly,"we freaked!"

There was no way in the world it was going to fit.
In the end it worked and we couldn't tell you how to save our lives in words because it was a little of this and a little of that and a whole lot of perseverance.

This was a real deal to install as neither it or the body are square.

since installing them in automobiles is what we do for a living. I've put windows in everything you can imagine in the last 31 years and never have I run into anything like this lol.

The thing that finally made it all make sense was completely taking every part back off the ship and measuring every piece.  Doing that we figured out what was out and where it was out and that's pretty much when things started going better.  The down side is that's also where we saw all the places that were screwed up making the molds.

RotorWay needs to completely remake the panels from scratch

 because each piece affects the other and it seems that as they went along, they hit a bump and just made a fix for it and kept going rather than go back and fix it from the beginning. Until they do us builders are going to have a hell of a time here.

One thing for sure is it can be done!

It just shouldn't be this tough to do!  Perhaps when we hit the end of it all we'll see something that makes it all make sense but until then the body assembly portion of this project is by far the worst part of it.

Drilling holes in the Plexiglas is best done with a step drill as it's totally safe and very unlikely you'll crack it.  If you can't get one for some reason you can use a drill bit that has had the sharp edges dulled so it doesn't grasp and pull itself in, if that happens you'll undoubtedly crack it. 

We had a booboo on the bottom screws

 where the windshield attaches to the floorpan, well it wasn't a booboo but a bad decision.  If you look in the books and videos you'll see it done two different ways, one view has screws and nuts like the top and sides do and other views show nut plates.

We installed nut plates and should have used the screw and nut method. 

Tom Smith told us either way is ok but with nut plates you have to be extremely careful not to over tighten the screws or the windshield will crack.

When you use the screws and nuts you tighten them until you can still rotate the screws by hand, that's sort of a method of making sure you haven't tightened them too tightly, a fail safe so to speak.  Be sure to use a larger size hole in the windshield because the Plexiglas expands and contracts and this will help to relieve stress during these times.  If you decide to bond the windshield to the body silicone adhesive is the best thing to use because it will allow the Plexiglas to still move a bit.  Because of the expense of the windshield, some $1,500.00 or so I'm told, we chose not to bond ours like we did the eyebrow windows.  Our logic was putting up with a leaking windshield should be easier then parting with $1,500.00 bucks plus all that labor lol.

Your local Plexiglas supply store can fix you up with it and a special applicator with a needle for applying it.

This stuff is like water and it will etch anything plastic it touches so use it sparingly.  It's best to get an old piece of Plexiglas, crack it and use it for practice before going for the real thing.

There is also a thickened version of this stuff available but we haven't ever had too much luck using it.

After we finished our Windshield we learned the the resin RotorWay provides you with the kit for doing this attacks Plexiglas, so don't use it.

Here as well as the outer edges of the doors we have millions of tiny cracks you can see when you wet it. Seems it's the hardener that causes this crazing to happen and makes the Plexiglas become brittle.

This is something RotorWay should have known long ago and made us aware of. I'm sure they have sold lots of replacement parts and maybe thats their goal, who knows.